One Giant Leap

The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon

By: Charles Fishman

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

The New York Times bestselling, “meticulously researched and absorbingly written” (The Washington Post) story of the trailblazers and the ordinary Americans on the front lines of the epic Apollo 11 moon mission.

President John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 25, 1961, when he announced to Congress that the United States should land a man on the Moon by 1970. No group was more surprised than the scientists and engineers at NASA, who suddenly had less than a decade to invent space travel.

When Kennedy announced that goal, no one knew how to navigate to the Moon. No one knew how to build a rocket big enough to reach the Moon, or how to build a computer small enough (and powerful enough) to fly a spaceship there. No one knew what the surface of the Moon was like, or what astronauts could eat as they flew there. On the day of Kennedy’s historic speech, America had a total of fifteen minutes of spaceflight experience—with just five of those minutes outside the atmosphere. Russian dogs had more time in space than US astronauts. Over the next decade, more than 400,000 scientists, engineers, and factory workers would send twenty-four astronauts to the Moon. Each hour of space flight would require one million hours of work back on Earth to get America to the Moon on July 20, 1969.

“A veteran space reporter with a vibrant touch—nearly every sentence has a fact, an insight, a colorful quote or part of a piquant anecdote” (The Wall Street Journal) and in One Giant Leap, Fishman has written the sweeping, definitive behind-the-scenes account of the furious race to complete one of mankind’s greatest achievements. It’s a story filled with surprises—from the item the astronauts almost forgot to take with them (the American flag), to the extraordinary impact Apollo would have back on Earth, and on the way we live today. From the research labs of MIT, where the eccentric and legendary pioneer Charles Draper created the tools to fly the Apollo spaceships, to the factories where dozens of women sewed spacesuits, parachutes, and even computer hardware by hand, Fishman captures the exceptional feats of these ordinary Americans. “It’s been 50 years since Neil Armstrong took that one small step. Fishman explains in dazzling form just how unbelievable it actually was” (Newsweek).

Great Facts but Choppy

One Giant Leap is extremely good for those looking to have a better understanding of what took place to land a man on the moon. However, if you are looking for a book that’s a chronological historical reference, this probably isn’t the book for you at this time. Highly recommended you read it sometime though!

Brilliant Brain Motivation

This was beyond fascinating to me as a 6th grade girl during Apollo 11 who was more interested in the Beatles & The Monkeys than in astronauts. I listened with great eagerness & now want to buy the book to read for myself & to keep.

Apollo great book

I lived in that time I worked on a Apollo project in Downey, California for many years i think it is the best book on this subject that i read

I thought I knew a lot about the US space program.

This book had more new to me info than any book or documentary I’ve consumed.

Putting Apollo in context

I really enjoyed this book. It’s one of the first ones I have read that connected the dots from the space program to the world we live in today