The History of the Manned Apollo Lunar Spacecraft

BROOKS, Courtney G., James M. GRIMWOOD and Loyd S. SWENSON. Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft. NASA SP-4205. Washington: GPO, 1979. xvii, 538 pp. 10 by 7 inches. Cloth.

Blue cloth binding, gilt; slight soiling to bottom edge.
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SIGNED and INSCRIBED by TWELVE Apollo Astronauts with their individual Apollo flight number(s). On the frontispiece verso: ALAN BEAN, GENE CERNAN, GORDON COOPER, WALT CUNNINGHAM, CHARLES M. DUKE, RICHARD GORDON, FRED HAISE, EDGAR MITCHELL, TOM STAFFORD, WALLY SCHIRRA and AL WORDEN on the frontispiece verso. SIGNED by BUZZ ALDRIN on the frontispiece photograph of him walking on the lunar surface during Apollo 11.

Covers the development and construction of the Apollo Command and Service Modules by NASA and North American Aviation. Changes in NASA's lunar mission architecture drove developments of the Lunar Module constructed by Grumman Aircraft located in Bethpage, Long Island, New York. Early mission concepts are included, with major changes resulting from the 1967 Apollo 1 spacecraft fire. Actual spacecraft flights are described comprising the unmanned missions, the first manned flight of Apollo 7 commanded by Wally Schirra, and the first manned flight of the Lunar Module on Apollo 9. Those flights and efforts enabled the lunar flights of Apollo 8, 10 and 11 to come to a successful conclusion. Some 50 pages are devoted to Apollo 11 alone. Numerous appendixes provide extensive facts and data including astronaut flight assignments (prime, back-up, support crews) and the date of the announcement plus astronaut capsule communicators by flight.

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