American moonshot : John F. Kennedy and the great space race / Douglas Brinkley.

On May 25, 1961, JFK made an astonishing announcement: his goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Douglas Brinkley brings together the extraordinary political, cultural, and scientific factors that fueled the birth and development of NASA and the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo proj...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Brinkley, Douglas (Author)
Language:English
Published: New York : HarperCollins Publishers, [2019]
Edition:First edition.
Subjects:
Physical Description:xxv, 548 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), portraits (some color) ; 24 cm
Format: Book
Contents:
  • Preface: Kennedy's new ocean
  • Rockets. Dr. Robert Goddard meets Buck Rogers ; Kennedy, von Braun, and the crucible of World War II ; Surviving a savage war ; Who's afraid of the V-2?
  • Generation Sputnik. Spooked into the space race ; Sputnik revolution ; Missile gaps and the creation of NASA ; Mercury Seven to the rescue ; Kennedy for President
  • Moonbound. Skyward with James Webb ; Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard ; ""Going to the moon": Washington, DC, May 25, 1961 ; Searching for moonlight in Tulsa and Vienna ; Moon momentum with television and Gus Grissom ; Godspeed, John Glenn ; Scott Carpenter, Telstar, and presidential space touring
  • Projects Gemini and Apollo. "We choose to go to the moon": Rice University, September 12, 1962 ; Gemini Nine and Wally Schirra ; State of space exploration ; "The space effort must go on" ; Cape Kennedy
  • Epilogue: The triumph of Apollo 11.