Authors: John M Logsdon Publisher: NASA ISBN: 9780160813818 Price: $35 (Hb), 858pp
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This seventh volume of NASA's definitive history is timely, covering human spaceflight in the fortieth year since the first Moon landing. It has the full text of President Kennedy insisting in secret talks with the head of NASA in 1962 that
putting a man on the Moon ahead of Russia must have top priority after defence. "We have to demonstrate that starting
behind, as we did by a couple of years, by God, we passed them."

It also reveals that Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step on the Moon, has never been given the full credit for his technical work in making the landing possible. Even before joining NASA he had done much pioneering work on developing the procedures and tools necessary for spacecraft to rendezvous and dock while in orbit. Techniques he devised have been used on all space rendezvous and docking flights since.

The other astronauts referred to Buzz as 'Dr Rendezvous' and his hard- working personality is contrasted with the earlier astronauts, who "in too many instances, were rambunctious men. They roughhoused and drank and drove fast and got into sexual peccadilloes." NASA officials described Gus Grissom,
in the first group of seven to be selected, as a consummate professional in the cockpit and an incorrigible adolescent whenever off duty. All the same, he could well have been the first man on the Moon if he had not died when an oxygen fire destroyed Apollo 1 during a ground rehearsal in 1967.

Reg Turnill