{"id":818,"date":"2019-06-12T10:51:57","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T15:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/?page_id=818"},"modified":"2019-08-26T08:51:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T13:51:00","slug":"eight-years-to-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/eight-years-to-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Years to the Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.twincities.com\/2019\/07\/21\/minnesotan-nancy-atkinsons-eight-years-to-the-moon-is-the-moon-landing-book-to-read\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"&quot;If you read only one book on the subject, it should be &quot;Eight Years to the Moon&quot;   (opens in a new tab)\">&#8220;If you read only one book on the subject, it should be &#8220;Eight Years to the Moon&#8221;  <\/a><\/strong>&#8212; <\/p><cite> <em>Twin Cities Pioneer Press<\/em> <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sciencemag.org\/books\/2019\/07\/15\/apollo-11-50-year-anniversary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"&quot;Atkinson's book is one of the best books published on Apollo&quot; (opens in a new tab)\">&#8220;Atkinson&#8217;s book is one of the best books published on Apollo&#8221;<\/a><\/strong> &#8212; <\/p><cite> <em>Science<\/em> magazine <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/MVIMG_20190610_124506-1-560x371.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-819\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/MVIMG_20190610_124506-1-560x371.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/MVIMG_20190610_124506-1-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/MVIMG_20190610_124506-1-768x508.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\"> In July of 1969, three astronauts set off on an historic mission to  land on the moon. Now, 50 years later, a new book celebrates the  achievement of the Apollo missions, detailing an incredible period of  science and engineering history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><strong>Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions<\/strong>  tells the unique personal stories of over 60 engineers and scientists  who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program possible. The  eight years from President Kennedy&#8217;s challenge in 1961 to the first Moon  landing in 1969 are filled with stories of the dedication and  perseverance it took to overcome the challenges, hurdles and conflicts  of doing things that had never been done before. The stories are fun,  heart-warming and heart-breaking and they provide a glimpse into the  lives of some of the hundreds of thousands of people who made it  possible to land humans on the Moon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rustyschweickart.com\/\">The book includes a foreword by Apollo 9 astronaut Russell &#8220;Rusty&#8221; Schweickart.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>Eight Years to the Moon<\/strong> is available at:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/162414490X\/\">Amazon<\/a>,  <\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.barnesandnoble.com\/w\/eight-years-to-the-moon-nancy-atkinson\/1131227300?ean=9781624144905#\/\">Barnes and Noble<\/a> , <\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.booksamillion.com\/p\/Eight-Years-Moon\/Nancy-Atkinson\/9781624144905\">Books-A-Million<\/a>, <\/li><li>or check with your local bookstore to order! <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><br>&nbsp;Unique  stories come from people like Henry Pohl (director of engineering at  Johnson Space Center),Glynn Lunney and Gerry Griffin (Apollo flight  directors), Frank Hughes(lead test engineer for the Apollo command and  lunar module simulators), and Bill Widnall (MIT computer expert). <br>There  are also stories from two of the very few women engineers at NASA  during the 1960&#8217;s (Dottie Lee and Catherine Osgood) and one of the few  African American engineers (Earle Kyle) at Honeywell, one of the Apollo  contractor companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>With Atkinson&#8217;s  engaging style, it&#8217;s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of that  era. In the words of Henry Pohl when he saw his first rocket test  launch, &#8220;When that thing lit off, I had never seen such power in my  life&#8230;I decided right then and there that&#8217;s what I wanted to be part  of&#8230;&#8221; And he was far from alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Through interviews and  research, Atkinson uncovers little-known details about the Apollo  program, including a potentially catastrophic event that could have  ended the Apollo 11 mission in disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Filled with insights from dozens of Apollo experts, <strong>Eight Years to the Moon<\/strong> is a book that will delight anyone who has ever looked up at the Moon and wondered how we got there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Praise for &#8220;Eight Years to the Moon&#8221;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHundreds of thousands of unsung heroes were part of the Apollo  program to reach the Moon, and Nancy Atkinson has meticulously  researched and written about many of them here. She\u2019s a great  storyteller and happily, Eight Years to the Moon takes us behind the  scenes to many places we\u2019ve never been before!\u201d<br>\u2015<strong>Peter King, correspondent, CBS News Radio Orlando\/Kennedy Space Center<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAtkinson  has seamlessly woven the stories of hidden figures and forgotten  linchpins into a narrative that lets readers live through the missions.\u201d<br>\u2015<strong>Sarah Scoles, science journalist and author of <\/strong><em><strong>Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAtkinson  has achieved the nearly impossible task of writing a truly original and  engaging narrative of the Apollo program, with little-known and rarely  told details of what it took to put humans on the Moon. Highly  recommended.\u201d<br>\u2015<strong>Rod Pyle, space author, journalist and Editor-In-Chief, <\/strong><em><strong>Ad Astra <\/strong><\/em><strong>magazine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Of  nearly 400,000 people who worked on Project Apollo, we hear mostly  about the handful of Apollo astronauts whose names will survive  centuries into the future. But in this fascinating book, Nancy Atkinson  introduces us to dozens of people, many of them engineers, who didn&#8217;t  make national headlines, yet were absolutely vital to the program. Her  writing is based on an extensive collection of interviews that she  conducted with many of the protagonists themselves, or with people who  remembered them. Avoiding technical language, Nancy presents a  captivating, behind-the-scenes history of Project Apollo that you will  have trouble putting down.&#8221;<strong>\u2015David Warmflash, MD, author of <\/strong><em><strong>Moon: An Illustrated History: From Ancient Myths to the Colonies of Tomorrow<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-justify\">&#8220;If you read only one book on the subject, it should be &#8220;Eight Years to the Moon&#8221; &#8212; Twin Cities Pioneer Press &#8220;Atkinson&#8217;s book is one of the best books published on Apollo&#8221; &#8212; Science magazine In July of 1969, three astronauts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":905,"href":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/818\/revisions\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nancyatkinson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}