Apollo 11: The Inside story

The incredible story of our journey to the Moon

Author david Whitehouse Publisher Icon Books Price £12.99 Released Out now

Awhite-knuckle prologue describes Neil Armstrong at the controls of the Eagle, searching for a suitable landing spot on the Moon. All has not gone smoothly and there are just seconds before the mission will need to be aborted. Immediately, then, the reader is aware that the familiar narrative of the Moon landing is made up of mere fragments of a much deeper and more hair-raising story. David Whitehouse takes us into that story, detailing how the Russians grabbed an early lead in the space race, only to be gradually overhauled by the more organised, more focused Americans.

There were inevitably disasters in both space programmes, but perhaps the most remarkable element of the story is that there weren’t many more. Even the worst disaster

in the build-up to the first Moon landing, the deaths of three Americans during a test in 1967, actually helped in the push towards the final goal. Astronaut Walter Cunningham commented: “Most of us believe that if there had not been that Apollo 1 fire, we would’ve lost some people in orbit and maybe — who knows what would’ve happened?”

The final picture to emerge is that of a US programme making steady and incremental progress, while the Russians became bogged down in reacting to American achievements, to the detriment of their own plans.

Only one programme could get to the Moon first and even though we know who won the race, Whitehouse’s description of it is engrossing.