The First Men on the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration)

The First Men on the Moon offers a lively definitive account of the Apollo 11 mission based on the in-flight transcripts post-flight debriefing, with illustrative contextual pictures, especially featuring recent scans of the original Hasselblad film and including conversations among the crew in the spacecraft that were not transmitted. The introductory chapters review the motivation to land on the Moon by the end of the 1960s, the development of the Saturn V rocket and the Apollo spacecraft as the means of doing so, the selection of potential landing sites, the precursor missions, and the backgrounds of the three men who were to fly Apollo 11. The final chapters will discuss what was learned of the moonrocks, and review the follow-on missions. In addition to having many ‘small’ in-line black-and-white illustrations with the text running around them, the book features the high-resolution scans recently produced by NASA from the original Hasselblad film, reproduced in a substantial color section. David Harland's impressive expertise in, and considerable experience wriring about, the Moon landings shines through and seemlessly unites the myriad details

From the reviews of Harland's Exploring the Moon:

"A detailed guide to what the astronauts did during their stays on the lunar surface. Walk(s) the reader through the prospecting excursions and then incorporate(s) decades of subsequent analysis to put the explorations of dust, rocks, craters, and rilles into geologic context."
SKY & TELESCOPE

"Very well illustrated… All aficionados of the Apollo program will find much to appreciate in [this book].”

"…this is an interesting account of one of the most extraordinary decades in history…a very different book. David Harland probably knows more about the nuts and bolts of the Russian and American space programs than any other author and it shows.”

LUNAR & PLANETARY INFORMATION BULLETIN