|  | Author: Craig Nelson
Publisher: Viking Adult
List Price: $27.95
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Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 10327
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition, First Printing
Pages: 416
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0670021032
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.4540973
EAN: 9780670021031
ASIN: 0670021032
Publication Date: June 25, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Book is new; It is brand new. Thank you!
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 36
 Terrible book, but great info in the negative reviews September 15, 2009
M. Gleason (Astoria, OR)
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
While the book is absolutely terrible, I did learn a lot by reading the corrections of fact listed in the other reviews!
Bad, Bad, Bad--A new "perigee" in Apollo history reporting September 10, 2009
Terry Sunday (El Paso, Texas United States)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
Let me begin this review by first mentioning a different book on the same subject--Harry Hurt's 1988 "For All Mankind." In the 20-plus years since its publication (timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing), "For All Mankind" has reigned supreme as the most technically inept attempt at a spaceflight book ever. Filled with gross misconceptions, major factual errors and incorrect "explanations" of spaceflight technology, "For All Mankind" is so bad that it is hard to imagine that a book about the Apollo program could be any worse. Well, Craig Nelson's "Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon," is worse. Far worse. Mind-numbingly worse. "Rocket Men" forges such a huge lead in the race for the worst spaceflight book ever written that even "For All Mankind" is left behind in the dust, a distant also-ran. "Rocket Men" is so bad, and so filled with breathtaking, jaw-dropping, forehead-striking technical errors, that you may momentarily find yourself wondering if it is really intended to be a satire on space "geekdom." But, sadly, it isn't, And if you have the misfortune to buy this book without realizing what you're getting, you will be very, very disappointed.
Don't take my word for it. Consider the following examples, as well as those provided by many other science-trained people who have posted reviews here. Then imagine a book filled to the brim with similar errors, inconsistencies, misstatements and graphic examples of Mr. Nelson's utter lack of knowledge of science, history, technology, aviation and spaceflight:
-- The X-15 had "...only 600,000 horsepower--one-fourth the velocity needed for orbit..." (Page 52)
-- The Apollo Command Module was "...a copper, silver and white cone made from iron reinforced with porcelain..." (79)
-- The Saturn V's F-1 engines produced "...a thrust that was four times the speed of sound..." (83)
-- Max Q, the period of maximum dynamic pressure on a rocket during ascent, is "...the outermost combination of gravity fighting speed..." (133)
-- On chimpanzee Ham's Mercury-Redstone flight: "...An abort call was made, which yanked the retro rockets, but Mission Control could not slow the capsule for reentry..." (149)
-- On Apollo 4: "...Two F-1 rockets abruptly quit during liftoff, at which point the stack pulled a U-turn and headed screaming back at the ground..." (194)
-- Fixing a J-2 engine involved "...repairing a flexible bellows-joint in the liquid hydrogen plumbing that kept cracking when it hit the ceiling of Earth's atmosphere..." (198)
-- During ascent, "...the astronauts were gradually and insistently pressed down further by the weight of their rocket's velocity..." (207)
-- What the Lunar Orbit Insertion burn did was "...slow the craft to 2,917 feet per second, allowing it to fall into the pull of the Moon's gravity. The gravitational warp in space-time then threw it like a slingshot to the dark side..." (225)
-- At Johnson Space Center, "...the Trench got its name from the fact that the floors of Mission Control were linked by pneumatic tubes of compressed air through which memoranda-stuffed aluminum cylinders shot back and forth--a technology from the Space Age of 1806..." (240)
And finally, in perhaps the most bizarre statement ever made in a purportedly non-fiction book:
-- The reason the astronauts' space suits had gold-plated visors was so that "...in the unlikely event of a hostile encounter, its reflection would keep aliens from being able to peer into a human face..." (268)
Some reviewers call technical errors such as these "nits," and say that the rest of "Rocket Men" is so well-written that they can be ignored. I don't see it that way. To anyone with the slightest knowledge of science and technology, these errors simply prove that Mr. Nelson is totally ignorant of these subjects and has no qualifications whatsoever to write a book about spaceflight. These "nits" show that Mr. Nelson lacks an understanding of the Apollo program on its most fundamental level--how it worked. Science and technology were the heart and soul of Apollo, and by getting those parts of the story wrong, "Rocket Men" loses all credibility and value. Other than to capitalize financially on the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing, I have to wonder why any author would try to write a book about a subject he knows so little about. I could do as well writing a book about, for example, contract bridge, about which I know absolutely nothing, and I would expect it to be equally disastrous and equally useless. There's a reason why so many knowledgeable reviewers recommend Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts." It is the best Apollo program history so far written. "Rocket Men" is the worst.
Bottom line: give "Rocket Men" a wide berth. Don't buy it. Don't even check it out of a library. Any time you spend between the covers of "Rocket Men" is time you'd be much better off spending doing something else.
 More Deeply Flawed Than Just Technical Errors. August 28, 2009
Science Designer
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I'm going to try a new approach with my review than others have taken.
There is little left to say that other reviewers have not stated about the (literally) hundreds of technical errors in this book. Are these reviews generated by over-nitpicky, nerdy engineers, quibbling about minor facts, and the book still holds its own as a good story, well told?
If only the problems with this book were that simple.
The lack of technical research is only one element of the troubles this book contains. Deeper errors come with the stories of people that Nelson attempts to tell. He writes well, with a nice turn of phrase and with seeming authority - which make his errors all the more enticing, and misleading.
Some of it is simply not knowing the material - such as his assertion that female pilots were "invited to apply" by NASA to become astronauts. Nelson is confusing private medical tests undertaken in a private clinic with a public NASA program. A minor social, human-story example, but a thread of misunderstanding that runs through the book. Nelson is a good writer, and an eager fan - but it takes more to write a book like this.
My major issue with Nelson's lack of personal research is his use of transcribed NASA oral histories, easily findable online. These interviews with key NASA players are anecdotal conversations, off-the-cuff memories never meant to be used as a major element of a book. Memories given in conversation off the tops of our heads are often a little off from reliable (and also, I should say, easily checkable) facts. But Nelson couldn't resist these interviews. No problem, used in snippets, carefully checked, they can breathe life into a story.
But Nelson doesn't use snippets. He dumps (literal) PAGES of them into his book. Sometimes two or three pages' worth of unfiltered interview, before his own writing comes back in. He relies on copied-and-pasted anecdotes to tell a human and engineering story, without having a real grasp of either. I have to question whether he should have published such lengthy extracts as his own work.
Of course, word has got out to some of the people who were interviewed for those oral histories. The ones I have heard from are not very pleased. The interviews were freely (literally, for free) given to NASA, and published online at taxpayer expense. And they were never meant to be anything than anecdotal memories.
With this book, Nelson has pumped out a good file of notes which could have been the elemental basis of a good book. With a team of knowledgeable and helpful engineers to help him get his facts right, some helpful historians who specialize in the field to get other facts right, and a couple of rewrites to mold his pages of straight lifts of other people's interviews into his own work, a great book might have emerged.
My suspicion is Nelson either became carried away with his enthusiasm for the project, mistaking enthusiasm for knowledge - or he was pressured to publish in time for the financially lucrative Apollo 11 anniversary, and published his file of notes without turning it into a true book.
As it is, he's created a book that is going to mislead well-meaning readers for generations to come. Which, in summary, makes this book a negative impact to the world (no amount of citing good reviews from Vanity Fair will change that). I'd suggest he take his royalties, count the number of pages of each interview he lifted, and share the money out amongst the people he lifted unedited memories from.
 A nice overview of the "space race" to the moon. August 27, 2009
Donald Engel
0 out of 13 found this review helpful
This is a good overview of the space race between the U.S. and U.S.S.R to be the first to put a man on the moon. My only quibble is with the organization of the material-cutting back and forth from Apollo 11 and the history of the space program- but that is a minor issue. The strength of the book is the extensive interviews with the astronaunts of the American and Russian space programs, engineers, mission control types, PR people etc. This has the effect of giving a clear picture of the space program as a whole-as welll as how truly dangerous this ambitious effort was. If you have any interest in the space program and particularly Apoll 11 this book is a must read.
Really, really bad August 26, 2009
David Shomper (Boulder, CO USA)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
I was an engineer at Kennedy on Gemini and Apollo and have more than a passing interest in (and knowledge of) the subject.
After reading the first few chapters of this book, I could not decide if it was a very good humor book or a very poor history book. After finishing it and noting well over 150 obvious errors, I think the latter.
Some of the gems:
Apollo 4 did NOT do a U-turn after launch and head for the ground (pg. 194)
MR-2 and Ham did NOT hit 2,298 miles per SECOND (pg. 149)
Saturn V did NOT use frozen O2 & H2 (pg. 6)
LM ladder temp at touchdown was NOT 2,000 deg (pg. 280)
Apollo 8 did NOT launch in 1948 (it was 1968) (pg. 199)
LH2 is NOT an oxidizer (pg. 97)
Armstrong did NOT log 4,000 hrs in the X-15 (on just 7 flights!) (pg. 53)
escape velocity from Earth is NOT 18,000 mph (pg. 125)
CSM and LM did NOT cost $100K each (pg. 7)
LM descent stage had only had 1 engine, NOT "engines" (pg. 247)
Thor is an ICBM on pg. 113, but downgrades to an IRBM by pg. 117
LM did NOT use hydrogen peroxide for the attitude thrusters (pg. 60, 234)
GET is Ground Elapsed Time, NOT "General" (pg. 84)
NASA's Wallops Island facility is in Virginia, NOT Maryland (pg. 129)
The list goes on. And on and on.
On pg. 210 he writes "an LM". Anybody who doesn't know "LM" is pronounced "lem" and not "ell em" should not be writing about it. (Same comment for "an LOX plant" on pg. 106.)
And where did he come up with the idea that the gold-plated visors would be helpful in keeping aliens from seeing human faces (pg. 268)?
This might be the worst space history book I have ever read. Do yourself a favor and instead read "In the Shadow of the Moon" and "Into That Silent Sea" by French and Burgess and "The First Men on the Moon" by Harland; this one is pretty poor.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 36
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