NASA’s Moon Program: Paving the Way for Apollo 11 by David M. Harland (PDF)

Description

In ‘Paving the Way for Apollo 11’ David Harland explains the lure of the Moon to classical philosophers, astronomers, and geologists, and how NASA set out to investigate the Moon in preparation for a manned lunar landing mission. It focuses particularly on the Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor missions.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review From the reviews:“Space historian/writer Harland … describes the first and early US satellite programs as well as the Soviet programs. … In addition to discussing program management, operations, hardware, and performance of the pre-Apollo missions, Harland places heavy emphasis on lunar geology and geography. … the volume includes more than 150 photographs and drawings of the moon. This historical account … will be useful to people working in the field of space history and technology. Summing Up: Recommended. Researchers, faculty, and professionals.” (A. M. Strauss, Choice, Vol. 47 (4), December, 2009)“This new book … describing what we knew before making the attempt, and how we discovered new things we needed to know before committing Apollo to the first manned lunar landings. … if you are an engineer, scientist, or a space buff, this book will hold your interest.” (James M. Busby, Space Times, Vol. 49 (1), January/February, 2010)“The narrative is fast-moving, informative and logically organized … . if you want to know, literally to the thousandth of a second, exactly what the Ranger, Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor spacecraft did during their lunar missions, it’s in there. Well over 200 well-chosen photos, drawings, diagrams and maps, many of them at full-page size, embellish and clarify the text–they’re worth more than ‘1,000 words’ each. … should reach a wider audience … . I recommend this volume most highly and without reservation.” (Terry Sunday, Amazon, July, 2011)

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Surely no modern spaceflight writer is as prolific as David M. Harland. The series of books he has written in the Springer/Praxis history of space exploration series seems to grow by the day. His books are comprehensive, thorough and almost flawlessly accurate, and are guaranteed to delight space geeks with their intimate details of spacecraft design, mission management and operations, and scientific experiments and their results.”Paving the Way for Apollo 11″ is no exception. Mr. Harland tells the little-known story of the three pre-Apollo unmanned spaceflight programs–Ranger, Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor–with which NASA explored portions of the moon and its environment in advance of the manned lunar landings. These programs are not very well known except among spaceflight cognoscenti, but their critical importance to the successes of Apollo cannot be overemphasized. With these three programs, NASA found out enough about the moon to prove, for example, that the Apollo Lunar Module would not sink into a bottomless pit of dust (Arthur C. Clarke’s ”

⭐” notwithstanding). With these programs, NASA gained confidence that Apollo astronauts would not be fried by radiation or punctured by meteoroids. With these programs, NASA managers were able to reduce the risks of lunar landing missions to manageable proportions because they knew (mostly) what to expect on the surface.Bookending about 350 pages about Ranger, Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor are, at the beginning, a 31-page introduction to the evolution of lunar knowledge in the days before spaceflight and, at the end, a 65-page capsule history of the Apollo program that’s as good as any I’ve ever read. In his Author’s Preface, Mr. Harland says he “used the mission reports as [his] primary source of information,” but his presentation is by no means as dry as you might expect considering the source documents. The narrative is fast-moving, informative and logically organized, despite its great depth of technical minutiae. All the details are there–if you want to know, literally to the thousandth of a second, exactly what the Ranger, Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor spacecraft did during their lunar missions, it’s in there. Well over 200 well-chosen photos, drawings, diagrams and maps, many of them at full-page size, embellish and clarify the text–they’re worth more than “1,000 words” each.The Springer/Praxis series sets the standard for historical spaceflight reporting, and “Paving the Way for Apollo 11” is a sterling example of what the books in the series have to offer. With this volume, the little-known unmanned precursor programs to NASA’s triumphant Apollo missions should reach a wider audience, as they well deserve to do. I recommend this volume most highly and without reservation.

⭐I grew up with the space program (born 1952), so I lived through the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter programs. I never imagined a book with so much detail, especially about the scientific results achieved. If you want detail – and maybe more than you want – this book will not disappoint.

⭐Book is very dry. I expected some color photos.

⭐Three series of robotic spacecraft truly did pave the way for Apollo. Ranger gave us a close-up look at the lunar surface and showed that, on scales of a few tens of meters or less, craters densities didn’t vary a great deal from place to place. It also showed that the surface could support boulders and, therefore, the Apollo lander. Lunar Orbiter provided high-resolution maps for the evaluation of potential landing sites. At lower resolution, Lunar Orbiter provided maps of most of the lunar surface with enough detail to permit a preliminary understanding of lunar geology so that the later missions could be sent to sites of particular scientific interest. And, finally, the Surveyors actually landed on the surface and got soil mechanics data from digging small tranches, broke rocks by hitting them with the digger, and analyzed soil composition. All three programs help reduce the risk inherent in Apollo. Of equal importance, the three programs taught the spaceflight community how to build and fly reliable, productive spacecraft. It was a steep learning curve. Ranger started with six failed missions in a row, before finishing off with three spectacular successes. Lunar Orbiter, a far more sophisticated spacecraft had five successes in five launches, but with enough operational problems to keep people on their toes. And, finally, Surveyor was so big a step upward in complexity, that some members of the science team were astonished that the first one landed safely and got to work. In seven tries, there were two crashes and five successesDavid Harland, with his usual thoroughness, has dug deeply into NASA reports and has produced a detailed account of the three programs. So much detail that, if trajectory design isn’t your cup of tea, you’ll find plenty on camera design and operation – or some other subject – to keep you happy. Plenty of helpful drawings and an excellent collection of images sent back from the Moon.

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