ResoluteReader: Francis French & Colin Burgess - In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquillity 1965-1969

Saturday, December 10, 2022

Francis French & Colin Burgess - In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquillity 1965-1969

The recent launch of the Artemis rocket to the moon has put humanities' exploration of space back in the media spotlight. Artemis brings to mind the Apollo moon landings that took place fifty years ago. But Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's first steps on the moon could only take place because of the technological and scientific achievements of dozens of earlier spaceflights.

In the Shadow of the Moon is a broad history of the human spaceflights that took place between the earliest missions and the moon landings. Covering both the Soviet and US missions, it focuses particularly on the development of the skills and technologies that allowed humans to leave spacecraft and "walk" in space and the skills needed to rendezvous two vehicles together in orbit. Most of the book is focused on the US missions as these are the ones that the authors have most access to archive material and interviews, though there are some interesting sections on Soviet achievements.

At the heart of the book are the Gemini missions which were the point when the US outstripped the Soviet Union in the "space race". Here the Americans learnt rapidly, though not always smoothly, the technologies needed to achieve a landing. What is obvious is that this was very much a race - these missions and the training of the astronauts were all geared toward hitting the target of a 1969 moon landing as declared by President Kennedy. All sorts of other things were sacrificed to make this possible, and indeed this included human lives on both sides as space agencies and governments pushed quickly forward. Two tragedies are at the heart of this. The launch pad fire of Apollo 1 which transformed NASA's internal organisation and forced a re-evaluation of much of how they approached human spaceflight and the death of Vladimir Komarov in Soyuz One.

It would have been remarkable had no lives been lost on the way to the moon landings. These were incredible achievements in terms of skills. The authors tell the story of how the space agencies learnt how to do things that are common place today - docking ships with each other, meeting in space and manoeuvring around other vehicles. The material on Gemini is particularly interesting as its often neglected in the stories of the moon landings, though I felt at times that the authors obsessed a little too much on the oft-told stories of the US astronauts themselves. The information on the Soviet cosmonauts was much less familiar and thus more interesting. But I did want more technical information - for instance I would have liked to know more about how the US developed the computing technology that is often referred too, yet barely described. This continues to be the basis for so much modern technology and it would have been fascinating to know more.

The authors tell the story of the first moon landing, but in many ways it is overshadowed by the earlier missions, in particular the two Apollo missions that went to the moon first. We also get a real sense of how those missions captured public interest and held it, before the waning of interest toward the end of the programme.

One thing I found fascinating. The authors emphasise how the astronauts were almost all from test pilot, or high ranking naval pilot backgrounds. This helps explain how many of them seemed uninterested in continuing their space careers. For them it had been a mission to be done, and once checked off, they were happy to do something else. I'm often fascinated by how astronauts might not want to return to space, yet this book helps explain why that happened. But the emphasis on high profile figures - astronauts and mission control - once again neglects and ignores the contributions of thousands of scientists, electricians, engineers, mathematicians and admin workers. I would have liked more on these "hidden figures" of the space programme - and it would have been nice to hear about the contributions of women other than the astronauts wives and mistresses. That said there is some amazing social history here - including how NASA essentially blocked its crews from getting divorces because they risked their flight status.

This is an accessible and interesting book that fills the gap between Mercury and Apollo and does not neglect the sacrifices and achievements of the Soviet Union in space. It is probably one for those with a deeper interest in the period and technology, rather than the casual reader. Though such a reader will also find it lacking in detail in places.