This is the true story of the men of Apollo 8. Robert Kurson does interviews with the people involved and their loved ones. This was a great book about a daring bunch of men who made the first trip to the moon. If you are interested in this mission and the men involved, then definitely pick this up and give it a read!

I’ve read Robert Kurson’s other books Shadow Divers and Pirate Hunters and really enjoyed them. When I saw her written another book I had to check it out and it did not disappoint!

I love when books teach me about a little known or forgotten part of history. The men seemed so down to earth and likeable and when I learned Mr. Kurson had actually interviewed them and their wives for this book it made me like it even more.

Kurson is one author who makes me compulsively turn pages and not even realize I’m doing it!

Thank you for shedding light on the Apollo 8 mission! And thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book!

Never in my wildest imagination would I have guessed that a nonfiction book about man's first trip to the moon would leave me on the edge of my seat. We already know that the first Apollo mission was a huge success, that the Saturn V rocket lifted off without issue as it propelled three astronauts to become the first people to orbit the moon.

And yet, this nonfiction book reads as if it were fiction: there's suspense, captivating dialogue, and surprising anecdotes that answer questions about space travel you never thought you wanted to know, such as...what did early astronauts do with their *ahem* waste, and how were they received by their peers upon their return to Earth (spoiler alert: it was mixed).

There were also touching stories about each of the astronauts' family members, and I was so moved by the relationship between Frank Borman and his wife Susan that I teared up on more than one occasion.

The audiobook is fantastic, and even though I had received an e-galley of Rocketmen, I preferred listening to the audiobook.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Net Galley. Rocket Men is a thrilling account of the 1968 Apollo 8 manned mission to circle the moon. This mission, which is somewhat forgotten in the wake of the Apollo 11 moon landing, is placed within the turbulent context of 1968 America, when the Vietnam War and political assassinations threatened to tear the country apart. Well and briskly written, Rocket Men goes deep in describing the lives and characters of astronauts Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell and how their heroic efforts helped bring the country and world just a little bit closer. This book also describes just how difficult and dangerous it is to launch men into space atop a gigantic 37 story rocket carrying 6 million pounds of volatile fuel. Detailed without being wonky, Rocket Men is a fast moving story of one of the most critical and pioneering feats in the history of man. Highly recommended.

Rocket Men follows the Apollo 8 mission which was the first manned mission to the moon. I think this mission is often overshadowed because they did not actually land on the moon like Apollo 11 or the near tragedy of Apollo 13. But that does not make this mission any less courageous.

This book was masterfully crafted. It provided the reader with an exciting tale of the mission as it unfolded from the mission profile changing only months before launch to splashdown and beyond. Robert Kurson intersects the narrative at appropriate points to give more details such as background on the astronauts.

Rocket Men does an excellent job of diving into the scientific and engineering marvels that fueled this flight. And it does not sigh away from the human perspective of how the bravery displaced by the three astronauts impacted each other, their families, and the world at large.

I ended up reading this via audio instead of as an ebook. I knew I would have some trouble reading it in print. I have never read Kurson before, but I have some knowledge of the Apollo missions and knew I would be interested in reading his take of this particular mission. I found his account fascinating, though parts of it very much went over my head.

In his book, Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon, Robert Kurson tells the incredible story of America’s race to the moon and the ingenuity it took to get there. The year was 1968, and the men chosen for this mission still had the tragedy of Apollo 1 weighing on them, but America was determined in spite of the turmoil around her to beat the Russians to the moon. This book chronicles the day-by-process for the perilous journey of Bill Anders, Frank Borman, and Jim Lovell, who didn’t know if they would ever return to earth or their families.

Rocket Men is a well-written and riveting account of one of the greatest examples of American exceptionalism. Kurson writes non-fiction with flair, suspense, and technical precision. He does so using every-day language, but reveals the striking bravery and ingenuity of the Americans as they stood out against the backdrop of political turmoil and war.

Rocket Men is a testament to the American Spirit and to its can-do attitude. The astronauts and their families display unbelievable courage and stamina in the face of uncertain outcome. This book is one of the best non-fiction books I have read this year, a must-read. I give it the highest recommendation possible.


I was given a free copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Random House and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Rocket Men. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

If I was to describe Rocket Men in one word, it would be captivating. The author has a way of writing about history that makes it come alive, giving the reader an all encompassing view of life during one of the most awe-inspiring time periods in the history of man. I particularly liked how author Robert Kurson discussed at length the important social issues of the time, as the preparation and lead up to the Apollo 8 mission did not happen in a vacuum.

Much has been written about Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, but the Apollo 8 crew of Jim Lovell, Frank Borman, and Bill Anders are scarcely known. This comprehensive book was clearly a labor of love for the author, as he describes the daring missions that enabled NASA to send men to orbit the moon. Rocket Men has renewed my love for history and I can say with certainty that other readers will concur. Regardless of age or level of interest in space, all readers will take away valuable lessons about perseverance from this nonfiction book.

First sentence: Three astronauts are strapped into a small spacecraft thirty-six stories in the air, awaiting the final moments of countdown. They sit atop the most powerful machine ever built.

Premise/plot: Rocket Men is a GREAT new nonfiction read. Primarily it tells the story of Apollo 8. It also provides an interesting overview of the space program, the cold war, and the sixties. The first half focuses on the men--the astronauts--Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, Bill Anders. The second half focuses on the mission itself. Readers get the perspective of the astronauts, those of mission control, and the families of the astronauts. The epilogue rushes through nearly five decades of history.

My thoughts: I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this one. If it has a weakness it would be that it made me REALLY want to watch From the Earth to the Moon. I restrained myself. How could I watch and read at the same time?! I love watching and reading about the space program. Though I've probably watched more than I've read. Perhaps I need to fix that soon! Which books would YOU recommend?

This is not a clean read. It has a few bad words--a few REALLY bad words. But the subject more than makes up for that as far as I'm concerned. One might even make the argument that the "current events" of 1968 call for strong language.

I believe the epilogue points out--or maybe it's the last chapter--that there was a failed attempt of a law suit regarding the astronaut's reading of Genesis 1 on the television broadcast of Apollo 8.

The book was full of fascinating details! Highly recommended.

December 2018 will be 50th anniversary of an incredibly important space flight, Apollo 8. Many people are familiar with Apollo 11 when man took his first steps on the moon. They are also familiar with two of the Apollo flights fraught with things gone wrong—Apollo 1 and Apollo 13. But they should become familiar with Apollo 8 if they are not already. It laid the groundwork for Apollo 11 to succeed, it put the United States in top position over the USSR during the Cold War space race, and it was an amazing endeavor pulled off in a very short time. The book Rocket Men by Robert Kurson does an excellent job at this and is quite exciting reading.

To quote the book:
“In one of the last interviews of his life, in 2011, Neil Armstrong called Apollo 8 “an enormously bold decision” that catapulted the American space program forward. Harrison Schmitt, one of the two last people to set foot on the Moon as part of the crew of Apollo 17, said of the flight, “It was probably the most remarkable effort that the NASA team down here ever put together.” When asked to compare Apollo 8 to his historic flight, astronaut Mike Collins said, “I think Apollo 8 was about leaving and Apollo 11 was about arriving, leaving Earth and arriving at the Moon. As you look back one hundred years from now, which is more important? I’m not sure, but I think probably you would say Apollo 8 was of more significance than Apollo 11.” Astronaut Ken Mattingly said, “Of all of the events to participate in, you know, I was lucky because I could do Apollo 11 as well as 8 and then 13. But being part of Apollo 8, it made everything else anticlimactic.”
For Chris Kraft, it was simple: “It took more courage to make the decision to do Apollo 8 than anything we ever did in the space program.””

The year was 1968. To quote the author:
“President Kennedy had promised in 1961 that U.S. astronauts would land on the moon, but as the decade drew to a close, the Soviet Union remained the unquestionable leader of the space race. After the CIA reported that cosmonauts planned a lunar flyby late in 1968, NASA altered Apollo 8’s mission. Instead of orbiting the Earth, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders would fly to the moon, orbit, and return. This was an especially challenging journey, because the August announcement meant that NASA’s astronauts and engineers had only four months to prepare.”

And not only would they make it, with theoretical calculations made by the planners of the mission coming out correctly many times down to the second, they would orbit the moon ten times. They would be the first men to leave the atmosphere of earth and reach the actual moon atmosphere.

The following quote from the book illustrates this:

“The next day, Jerry Lederer, director of NASA’s Office of Manned Space Flight Safety, spoke to a group of aviation enthusiasts in New York. Apollo 8, he said, had one safety advantage over the voyage undertaken by Christopher Columbus in 1492: “Columbus did not know where he was going, how far it was, nor where he had been after his return. With Apollo, there is no such lack of information.” There was, however, the matter of complexity. “Apollo 8 has 5,600,000 parts and 1,500,000 systems, subsystems and assemblies,” Lederer noted. “Even if all functioned with 99.9 percent reliability, we could expect 5,600 defects.” For that reason, Lederer concluded, Apollo 8’s mission would involve “risks of great magnitude and probably risks that have not been foreseen.””

I was 13 years old in 1968, and still remember the thrill of hearing and seeing broadcasts made from this flight and from Apollo 11 when they used Information gleaned from Apollo 8 to actually set foot on the moon. Awe inspiring! I will never forget the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast. Mission Control had not told the astronauts what to say, and in the broadcast after showing the surface of the moon and describing it, they did the following which the author of this book describes more poignantly than I could. To quote:

“The scheduled television time was winding down, and there was one important thing left to do. As the spacecraft moved across the Sea of Tranquillity, Borman motioned to Anders.
“We are now approaching lunar sunrise,” Anders said, “and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.”
No one at Mission Control, or anyone else, had any idea what these men were about to say.
The astronauts’ wives and children and friends leaned forward.
While the Moon continued to move across television screens, Anders began. “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.”
Anders was reading the first words from Genesis, the first book of the Bible.
Lovell continued the passage. “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” Borman continued. “And God said, ‘Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered together unto one place. And let the dry land appear.’ And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth. And the gathering together of the waters called He seas. And God saw that it was good.”
Borman paused. “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth.”
A moment later, television screens around the world went dark.
Inside Mission Control, no one moved. Then, one after another, these scientists and engineers in Houston began to cry. The agency had allowed the crew to choose what to say to the world on Christmas Eve—no oversight, no committees, not even a quick glance on the day before they’d departed. It had come as a complete surprise to them.
In his studio at CBS, Walter Cronkite fought back tears as he came back on the air.
At a house party in Connecticut, novelist William Styron told himself to remember the scene. He had had to persuade his host, the composer Leonard Bernstein, to watch the broadcast. Bernstein considered the space program an overhyped waste of vast American treasure, but he’d bent to the wishes of his guest.
As the astronauts read from Genesis, the raucous party went still. Styron would never forget the emotion on Bernstein’s face during Borman’s parting words, a look he would describe years later as “depthless and inexpressible.””

The author interviewed the three Apollo 8 astronauts, and researched this book extensively. He managed to write a page-turner where chapters of suspense detailing the flight are interspersed with historical detail about those involved in this flight as well as historical detail about the era and 1968 as a whole. Science and engineering are included, but in a way that a nonNASA employee can understand.

1968 was at the height of the Vietnam War. There were race riots in America. There were demonstrations on college campuses. There were assasinations. I was a fairly shielded 13 year old in that my parents did not believe in turning on our television much. We read. The nightly news was not watched so I missed seeing images of the war nightly. I read the paper so knew there was unrest, but was too immature to pick up on the depth of it. Reading about it now, 50 years later, I really realize how exciting these broadcasts of the moon and space were in a time where there was a lot of chaos back on earth.

I give this book the highest rating possible and highly recommend that you read it!

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book and for allowing me to review it.

While I appreciate the readability of Kurson's work, Rocket Men as a whole leaves something to be desired. The parts where the narrative's focus was on the Apollo 8 mission really shone; the rest of it needed some heavy editing. The lack of citations on the factual quotes was frustrating, and Kurson's overuse of cliches cheapened parts of the an otherwise very fascinating story. Also, Kurson's treatment of the women involved bordered on the patronizing; if I had to read one more line about poor Susan Borman I was going to scream. This type of writing led me to question any emotional references Kurson made in the book; I was never sure if it was something someone had said in an interview or if it was Kurson projecting for the sake of the narrative. Questioning if something is factual isn't really what I want to be doing when I'm reading an historical nonfiction book about a well-documented and heavily publicized venture.

Overall I found the book to be a good gateway for readers who haven't had a chance to learn about the Apollo missions beyond Hollywood. Unfortunately, I also think there are better books out there that would go more in depth in the mission itself and not so much on the (assumed) personal or historical context.

This book is fantastic! Compelling and so well-written, Kurson does a beautiful job of engaging the reader and making nonfiction material read like a novel. Highly recommend! Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my advanced reader copy. This is my unbiased opinion.

My parents were teenagers during the space race. As a toddler, my first trips out of Puerto Rico were to see space shuttle launches in Cape Canaveral, FL. Since then, they have shared their experiences as teenagers during the space race and have transmitted their awe of all things NASA to me. I have read plenty of astronaut memoirs and books retelling the legendary feats accomplished in specific missions, but this book adds historical perspective to those narratives.

Regardless of how familiar you think you are with this tale, give Kurson's book a chance and be prepared to be transported once more to an era where space exploration united not just the nation, but the world.

After the devastating Apollo 1 fire and investigation, NASA planned a new sequence for the planned trip to the Moon, and originally Apollo 8 was supposed to test the command and lunar module in low earth orbit. But the lunar module would not be ready by the anticipated launch date. Instead an audacious plan dreamed up by head engineer George Low was put into plan: the command and service module would orbit the Moon, reconnoiter landing sites, and return, all during the Christmas holidays.

The year 1968 was full of turmoil for the United States. Both Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. Protests against the Vietnam War and against racism raged on college campuses and in large cities. Soldiers were dying every day in Southeast Asia. President Lyndon Johnson faced increasing criticism each day. And at NASA personnel were still reeling from the capsule fire that had taken the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.

Kurson follows the Apollo 8 mission from inception to splashdown, with asides talking about the history of the "space race," the troubles besetting the country in 1968, and the lives and careers of the three astronauts headed to the moon, especially the sober and driven Frank Borman, who was determined to go to the Moon to strike a blow at Communism. It also follows the emotional reaction of Susan Borman, who put on a brave face to the world but who was consumed with fear that NASA was proceeding too quickly.

This is the third book I have read about the Apollo 8 mission (others were by Jeffrey Kluger and Robert Zimmerman) and I can't decide if I like this or Kluger's book more. They are both super overviews of the "heady days of the space program," missions I remember watching avidly on television. I would definitely recommend both this book and Jeffrey Kluger's if you are interested in a history of the Moon missions.

Always been a fan of books about the space race, and this book. Is no different. Do yourself a favor and read this book and learn how we "reached for the stars".
Thanks to #netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book.

There are some really long bios on the astronauts, which start interesting but drag far too long. Makes it feel like a standard bio, but I suppose the title should have warned me. Everything that happened to bring the astronauts’ lives to the launch is important, but it’s still at about the halfway point of the book, when the massive rocket actually takes them into space, that things really get interesting. . . just like in real life, I suppose.
I do like that there’s so much here about the wives in the time up to and including the launch, even more so than the astronauts themselves, with their macho “I’m not scared” attitude.
At this point it turns from biography to something more akin to a very technical science fiction novel.
In the middle of the flight the author pauses for a chapter on how the year 1968 had gone, musically as well as politically and socially. I guess it resonated with me because it’s the year I was born, though of course I don’t remember it. RFK was assassinated only a month before my birth, not far from where my parents lived, and as someone who enjoys counterfactuals—what ifs—it’s easy to speculate what might have happened: no Nixon presidency. On the other hand, there’s no way to gauge how far civil rights would have gone if MLK hadn’t been shot. The chapter mentions the Beatles and Stones, but at the end there’s Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along The Watchtower, and put in this perspective, the lyrics hit home like never before.
It’s a tough road, but if you make it through the first half there’s plenty of reward. Definitely think said first half could have been shorter.
Such a poignant way to end it. . .
3.5 pushed up to 4/5

I'm a big fan of the space program, particularly the Apollo missions, and Apollo 8 is one of my favorites, so I devoured Kurson's Rocket Men for all of the information, as well as the background of the astronauts and others involved, and the context of what the world was like in 1968. This was a great examination both of the first manned mission to the moon and what it meant to the world at large.

Absolutely riveting! Kurson uses extensive research to detail an in depth history of Apollo 8, the NASA mission that sent three astronauts on the first orbit around the moon in December 1968. Kurson lays out the events that led to the mission being moved up (in part to win the space race against the Russians) and puts it all in perspective with the cultural and political events of 1968. Overshadowed by the Apollo 11 mission which landed man on the moon , Apollo 8 is perhaps the more interesting mission as it made future missions possible. No one knew if the calculations were correct or if the plan (and technology!) would work or if Christmas of 1968 would be tragic. All three astronauts from the mission- Borden, Lovell and Anders and their wives are still alive and Kurson was able to interview them (minus Borden's wife who was unwell) to get their recollections on the events in addition to the primary resource materials from the time. Very well written for the lay person and perfectly combined the science with the very human elements of achievement, fear and awe.

Thanks to NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Space freaks me out. I couldn't even watch Cosmos because all the talk about planet motion and black space made me sweat. I will never aspire to go to space or the Moon. If we ever colonize, I will die on Earth because my anxiety will not survive the journey.
I may be afraid of space, but I love learning about the people behind space travel. I picked up Rocket Men because that's it, the people behind the first trip to (AND AROUND) the Moon: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders.
I loved so much of this book. I was born almost 20 years after the Apollo 8 mission, so I had no background about space travel besides the film "Apollo 13" and that was quite a few mission after. I loved learning about the little quirks of the astronauts and the historical significance of the Apollo 8.
I looked up the videos from the launch and the broadcasts from inside the rocket on YouTube. It's tremendous to see how far we have come in technology and that makes it even more fantastic.
Kurson does a really good job putting you in the minds of the crew. I see (on a small level) on exciting and scary this trip to the moon really was. These men risked their lives for research, science, their families, and America.
My biggest complaints are the heavy science. Kurson literally goes through every detail regarding launching a rocket; including physics, biology, and engineering. I'm not the person for this. I stopped with science my junior year and only went minimum with Math. I skimmed those parts pretty heavy because to me it looked like really big numbers and all I really need to know for the book is that the rocket went really fast, slowed down until the Moon's gravity picked it up, and they used the rocket to get back to Earth. Really, the science was super over kill when paired with the characters and the history of 1968.
My last complaint is the ending. The book explains so fantastically how difficult, exciting, and terrifying the journey was. It also explains the things that happened after the crew returned home. The trip around the moon had more effects than anyone involved expected, but Kurson kind of just drops off with the story about Borman and his wife. It would be great if that's where the story was, but I felt Rocket Men was about 1968 as a whole and the journey around the moon, not as people focused as I expected or hoped for.
I really enjoyed it as a whole. I didn't suffer from my usual spacial anxiety and I loved hearing about these fantastic men who did the impossible. Rocket Men is a good look into history and space travel, especially if you have an interest in physics and engineering.

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Fifty years ago, many people were transfixed by the new movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose scenes included flights to the Moon and bases there (see “Review: Space Odyssey”, The Space Review, April 2, 2018). That included many members of NASA’s astronaut corps, who were preparing for real flights to the Moon on Apollo missions. An exception, though, was Frank Borman. “That stuff was science fiction, Borman told his colleagues,” as recalled in the new book Rocket Men. “America had real people to get to the Moon.”

Borman, of course, would get to go to the Moon at the end of the year, commanding the Apollo 8 mission that was the first crewed mission to go beyond Earth orbit and orbit the Moon. The mission was pulled together on just a few months’ notice, in response to concerns within NASA that the United States was in danger of being beat by the Soviets. It would go on to become one of the most remarkable, and successful, missions in the agency’s history, to this day.

In Rocket Men, Kurson able tells a familiar story well. He traces the mission from its origins in discussions among NASA officials in August 1968, proposing an alternative, but risky, mission to testing in Earth orbit in order to beat the Russians while also buying time for the troubled lunar module development. Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders were then planning to fly the Apollo 9 mission, but Borman agreed to take the revised Apollo 8 mission.

Kurson interleaves chapters charting the chronological progress of the mission with other chapters that provide background: one each for the astronauts, for example, as well as a background on the space race itself and even a capsule history of 1968. He links those chapters together such that the shift from those on the mission to those with background never seem particularly jarring. There are plenty of anecdotes to both enlighten and entertain along the way.

The book is well-written overall, and Kurson interviewed all three members of the Apollo 8 crew for it. If there’s one drawback to it, though, it’s that the story is a familiar one: the books doesn’t really unearth anything new about the mission that had not been discussed in previous books or articles. Kurson said he was inspired to write the book after seeing the Apollo 8 capsule in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago: “The more I read about the odyssey of Apollo 8, the more starling it seemed that so little had been written about it.” But, in fact, there’s been a lot written about the book, such as Jeffrey Kluger’s Apollo 8 published a year ago (see “Review: Apollo 8”, The Space Review, June 19, 2017). And that was hardly the first book written about the mission.

Rocket Men is a good book about the Apollo 8 mission, but perhaps one best suited for those not familiar with the mission at all versus those who have already read various books about the mission and are looking for new details. The book, and the mission itself, offer a reminder that sometimes science fiction becomes science fact, if not necessarily the way we envisioned it.