Lunar star

摘要

Whatever else Jay Barbree's Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight might be, it is not a biography of the first man to walk on the Moon, who died in 2012. Instead, it is an almost mission-by-mission summary of NASA's Apollo programme, observations on the nature of human space-flight throughout the past half century and a few insightful stories. The anecdotes are detailed and effective, and sometimes illuminate larger issues. There are conversations with space celebrities, astronauts' jokes and debates over the focus of space initiatives. At the very least, this represents a unique opportunity to read the details of what some astronauts, including Armstrong, might have been thinking at times in their careers.