APPOINTMENT ON THE MOON, SPACE VENTURE by Richard S. Lewis, 1st/1st 1968 HC/DJ

Appointment on the Moon: The Inside Story of America's Space Venture, by Richard S. Lewis — First Edition, First Printing 1968 HC/DJ

 Publisher: Viking Press, New York (1968)

"Appointment on the Moon: The Inside Story of America's Space Venture," by Richard S. Lewis. First Edition, First Printing from 1968 in overall excellent condition. The boards and binding are crisp, colorful, solid and tight. The pages are crisp and clean save previous owner's signature on first blank page. The unclipped dust jacket is in very good condition, save some shelf wear to the top spine end. Still shows original price of $10. A wonderful comprehensive history of the entire US space program in a first edition, first printing copy. 

Review and Description

Appointment on the Moon by Richard S. Lewis provides comprehensive history of the entire US space program from the days of the NACA up to Apollo 11. This includes manned and unmanned space flights: Vanguard, Ranger, Surveyor, Lunar Orbiter, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, etc. It gives not only an overview of each program, but a thorough account of each separate mission in each program, of failures and successes, of the hardware used: Jupiters, Atlases, Redstones, Saturns, etc., and their development, and interesting sketches of the men involved in the program, including scientists (like Van Allen), management, (like Chris Kraft), engineers and, of course the astronauts themselves. In addition, it covers early commercial space flights, like the launching of communications satellites such as Telstar, and also early weather satellites. And it also summarizes some of the more difficult scientific and technical aspects of the program (discovery of the radiation belts, for example) in language easily understood by the non-scientific general public.