Apollo Through the Eyes of the Astronauts

Apollo Through the Eyes of the Astronauts

Is another pictorial history of the Apollo moon missions needed? Sure! Fans of space exploration and the history of space flight will welcome this collection of photos into their libraries.

The book begins with a forward by physicist Steven Hawking and his daughter, writer Lucy Hawking. The Hawkings defend the admittedly enormous expenditures required to maintain a space exploration program and clearly support continued missions to better understand Earth's galactic neighborhood.

After the forward, and a short introduction, it's all pictures. Wonderful pictures that reflect the hard work and effort, dangers and triumphs, of America's Apollo space exploration program.

A History in Pictures

Only a few people get to travel in space. Fewer still have been all the way to the moon and back. So, it is through photography that the rest of the world can best share in this human accomplishment.

Although the video sent from the lunar surface in July, 1969 was fuzzy, the still photos that came back were excellent. Some photos are in dramatic black and white while others are in full color. It is interesting to note that the resolution of the photos did not improve all that much from 1968 to 1973. But then again, these photos were chosen for whatever reasons the astronauts had for choosing them, and not necessarily for their technical excellence.

Apollo 7 Through Apollo 17

The images in the book are presented in mission sequence, beginning with the first manned flight of Apollo 7. At first look it appears that the editors chose not to include anything from the tragic training mission, that was later dubbed Apollo 1, in which three astronauts lost their lives in a fire. This seems like an oversight, but no. At the very end, the book is dedicated to Grissom, White and Chafee, who were in the ill-fated capsule when tragedy struck.

Although the images are presented in mission sequence (Apollo 7—Apollo 17), they are not in sequence within each mission. This actually adds to the interest of the photos. Since the photos were chosen by the astronauts simply as their favorites, it would not necessarily make sense to arrange them in launch-to-recovery order.

This book makes a fine companion to Voices From the Moon, which also came out in 2009 in commemoration of the moon missions. There is a little overlap between the two, but while Voices features the words and thoughts of the astronauts, Apollo Through the Eyes of the Astronauts is more of a personal visual remembrance.

Jacobs, R., Cabbage, M., Moore, C., and Ulrich, B. eds. Apollo Through the Eyes of the Astronauts. New York, NY. Abrams: 2009