Early Exploration of the Moon

The bold dream of lunar exploration was a national priority for both the US and the USSR during the Cold War era. From the earliest Russian Lunik probes to the United States' successful manned flights to the surface, every attempt to visit the Moon held significant technological and political weight. This book is a lucid and accessible account of humankind's attempts to reach the Moon, from the perspective of an engineer who worked on the Apollo program. It describes in some technical detail the various spacecraft that were designed and launched on the first lunar explorations. Focusing primarily on the US program, it includes several chapters on Russian manned and unmanned lunar missions of the time. The moon-bound spacecraft of the 1950's through to the mid-1970s were remarkable for their performance, efficiency, and ruggedness, reflecting the best engineering art of the day. The book examines how every last bit of performance was wrung out of the existing technology, with the scale and stakes of each mission escalating as every attempt brought the two competing nations-and all of humanity-closer to the Moon.