On July 16, 1969, a Saturn V rocket launched the Apollo spacecraft carrying American astronauts to the surface of the moon, where Neil Armstrong would take his famous first steps and fulfill Pres. John F. Kennedy's goal of a successful lunar landing by the end of the decade. This event marks one of the greatest achievements in human history and is in large part due to the years of rocket testing that took place at the Douglas Aircraft Company's Sacramento testing facility (SACTO). The SACTO facility played one of the most important roles in the success of the Apollo 11 lunar mission and is where the Saturn rocket's S-IVB stage was developed and tested--making this historic accomplishment possible.

In the first comprehensive photographic account of the Saturn V, relive the drama of the Space Race through the production of the rocket that would carry Neil Armstrong and crew to the moon. In 1961, Pres. John F. Kennedy set the challenge of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. In order to achieve this, NASA partnered with US industry to build the largest rocket ever produced, the Saturn V. It was designed and tested in record time and made its first flight in 1967. Less than two years later and within the timescales set by the president, the crew of Apollo 11 was launched on a Saturn V and watched live by millions of people on televisions around the world. From this launch, Neil Armstrong made his famous giant leap for mankind, later to be followed by 11 other astronauts who also walked on the moon.

In 1962, a unique transport aircraft was built from the parts of 27 Boeing B-377 airliners to provide NASA a means of transporting rocket boosters. With an interior the size of a gymnasium, "The Pregnant Guppy" was the first of six enormous cargo planes built by Aero Spacelines and two built by Union de Transport Aeriens. More than half a century later, the last Super Guppy is still in active service with NASA and the design concept has been applied to next-generation transports. This comprehensive history of expanded fuselage aircraft begins in the 1940s with the military's need for a long-range transport. The author examines the development of competing designs by Boeing, Convair and Douglas, and the many challenges and catastrophic failures. Behind-the-scenes maneuvers of financiers, corporate raiders, mobsters and other nefarious characters provide an inside look at aviation development from the drawing board to the scrap yard.

"Here is adventure through lives and loves of an American whose curiosity attracted him to dangers. His head and hardiness handed him luck and learnings that saved him more than once from death, but rather, delivered him from youth to high age through hazards and adventures into humility and ability to look back in lucid memory, which you here can share. Curiosity marked the life of this American. Attracted not only to learning but also to danger because of curiosity, he lived akin to the proverbial cat. Unlike the cat, he survived. Early in life, his small, coastal town was hit directly by the most destructive hurricane to smash America in the twentieth century. Near to deaths and injuries, he was a witness, not a victim, suffered only consequences of comprehension: satisfactions of seeing, learning, witnessing safely through the melee. Acquaintances were killed, Streets and houses destroyed, indelible memories for an eleven year old. Three years later, and half a world away, he captured, caged, and kept poisonous spiders, rattlesnakes, and a Gila monster, the only poisonous American lizard, many creatures others feared, kept them in high confidence they had lessons worth his learning. Learn here the tensing adventures of this American original, man of curiosity, wanting to learn and know far more than curriculums. He courted danger much of his life, meeting his sometimes near death experiences, but escaped, learned, and advanced to become a key innovator in safe and successful Rocket and Space tests Launchings more than a hundred of them under his personal direction. His unique actions to bring people, their proclivities, and genuine abilities together to perfect technical achievements and bond camaraderie of team talents, led to unlocking safety and success in more than 115 rocket launches to the heights and hazards of space, to high space surveillance, to loft satellites of science and unique performance, some to survey the moon, some to visit planets, As well he led preparation, ground-firing, of the vehicles that carried men to the moon and back. His launches performed missions in American nuclear safety, as well he acted in creation of the Global Positioning System that today dominates location and navigation. Read here the making of a rare mind on collecting, cogitating, comprehending dangers of poison, pestilence, rocket hazards and loneliness of outer space.

This book tells the story of the Soviet and Russian lunar programme, from its origins to the present-day federal Russian space programme. Brian Harvey describes the techniques devised by the USSR for lunar landing, from the LK lunar module to the LOK lunar orbiter and versions tested in Earth’s orbit. He asks whether these systems would have worked and examines how well they were tested. He concludes that political mismanagement rather than technology prevented the Soviet Union from landing cosmonauts on the moon. The book is well timed for the return to the moon by the United States and the first missions there by China and India.