First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong (Paperback)
Item #: BookFirstMan
First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
Neil Armstrong will always be remembered for being the first man to step on the moon, a milestone that played a role in everything he did afterward. Through most of this biography, which follows Armstrong from his youth to that historic lunar landing, Boyd Gaines reads with detachment, letting the facts of Armstrong's life speak for themselves--and those facts speak beautifully.
On July 20, 1969, a quiet, determined man from Wapakoneta, Ohio, stepped out of his fragile spacecraft and into history. Neil Armstrong--engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, astronaut and devoted family man--became the first man to walk on the moon.
In this powerful, unrelenting biography of a man of no particularly spectacular talent yet who stands as a living testimony to everyday grit and determination, former NASA historian Hansen has achieved something quite remarkable. Like a rich pointillist painting, he has created a magnificent panorama of the second half of the American 20th century by assembling a multitude of luminescent moments in one man's life.
From Armstrong's birth to a middle-class family in Ohio to the mind-boggling fame of the Apollo 11 triumph, and later his service on the commission investigating the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster, Hansen details it all. He writes of the number of rounds of 20-millimeter ammunition loosed by Armstrong's fighter squadron in Korea in October 1951 (49,299)and his heart rate on liftoff in Gemini VIII (146 beats per minute) Rather than overwhelming, this accumulation of details gives flesh-and-blood reality to a man who is more icon than human. With the recent renewal of interest in manned space travel, this book is a must for astronaut buffs and history readers alike.
Features and Reviews:
"If you think you know everything about Neil Armstrong and America's historic mission...First Man contributes a host of fascinating new insights into the nature of spacefaring enterprise itself. A book for all time" - Walter Cronkite
Paperback: 784 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition (October 3, 2006)
Language: English
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
Neil Armstrong will always be remembered for being the first man to step on the moon, a milestone that played a role in everything he did afterward. Through most of this biography, which follows Armstrong from his youth to that historic lunar landing, Boyd Gaines reads with detachment, letting the facts of Armstrong's life speak for themselves--and those facts speak beautifully.
On July 20, 1969, a quiet, determined man from Wapakoneta, Ohio, stepped out of his fragile spacecraft and into history. Neil Armstrong--engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, astronaut and devoted family man--became the first man to walk on the moon.
In this powerful, unrelenting biography of a man of no particularly spectacular talent yet who stands as a living testimony to everyday grit and determination, former NASA historian Hansen has achieved something quite remarkable. Like a rich pointillist painting, he has created a magnificent panorama of the second half of the American 20th century by assembling a multitude of luminescent moments in one man's life.
From Armstrong's birth to a middle-class family in Ohio to the mind-boggling fame of the Apollo 11 triumph, and later his service on the commission investigating the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster, Hansen details it all. He writes of the number of rounds of 20-millimeter ammunition loosed by Armstrong's fighter squadron in Korea in October 1951 (49,299)and his heart rate on liftoff in Gemini VIII (146 beats per minute) Rather than overwhelming, this accumulation of details gives flesh-and-blood reality to a man who is more icon than human. With the recent renewal of interest in manned space travel, this book is a must for astronaut buffs and history readers alike.
Features and Reviews:
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