The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon

By: Todd Zwillich

Narrated by: Todd Zwillich, Angelo Di Loreto

Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

The story of John C. Houbolt, an unsung hero of Apollo 11 and the man who showed NASA how to put America on the moon.

Without John C. Houbolt, a mid-level engineer at NASA, Apollo 11 would never have made it to the moon.  

Top NASA engineers on the project, including Werner Von Braun, strongly advocated for a single, huge spacecraft to travel to the moon, land, and return to Earth. It's the scenario used in 1950s cartoons and horror movies about traveling to outer space. 

Houbolt had another idea: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. LOR would link two spacecraft in orbit while the crafts were travelling at 3,600 miles an hour around the moon. His plan was ridiculed and considered unthinkable. But this junior engineer was irrepressible. He stood by his concept, fired off memos to executives, and argued that LOR was the only way to success. 

For the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11, hear the untold story of the man who helped fulfill Kennedy’s challenge to reach the moon and begin exploring the final frontier.

©2019 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2019 Audible Originals, LLC.

Massive fact error crashes, burns this title

I got this title with great expectations, since I love everything Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. Sadly, my experience with this book never got off the ground.

I stopped listening the moment I heard the narrator talk about the baseball game attended by President Kennedy, which featured Ernie Banks of the Chicago WHITE SOX. WHITE SOX.

That is an inexcusable fact error. Even the most cursory review of history quickly reveals that Ernie Banks was Mr. Cub. As a person who spent more than 30 years working in newsrooms, your reporting of the facts is the key to your credibility. When you screw up something this easy, how can I trust you on anything else.

The writer lost me with that glaring mistake,

An engineer with the "Right Stuff"

I was unaware of this story, and was really impressed by it. It makes.me proud to be an Engineer. Thank you for telling us about him, and those who walk in his footsteps.

A Wonderful Rendering of a Consequential Story

What a wonderfully written and executed story of a man who in all estimates was at least one sin qua non making it possible to get to the moon in 1969. The amount of credit due him is debatable but it appears to be somewhere between a lot of credit and a hell of a lot of credit. More important than that is a story of perseverance and what to do when you truly believe in your ideas. John Houbolt pushes ideas against incredible rejection until they finally held sway. The risks that he took to his career are easy to ignore when you know that the outcome was a successful landing on the moon but just imagine if some of the most Brilliant Minds in the world told you that you were full of shit. How hard would you continue to push what you believe is right? At the end the book poses the example of the O-rings from the space shuttle disaster and how the key engineer there knew that something was not right but regrets to this day not fighting harder to make that case. It is always hard to imagine how we will respond when everything is really on the line and most people never really find out what they're made of in that regard but this book exemplifies what this person did in any case and it's a great book to experience as we approach the 50 year anniversary of what is to me the most consequential event that has ever happened in history of mankind.

who would have known, thanks John

If it wasn't for John we may not have made it to the moon. John steadfastness and perseverance make it happen.

A must listen!

A very interesting and human story about the Apollo 11 mission. Will recommend to friends.

Please Read This !

An absolute treat for the inquiring mind regardless of your generation. A testament to vision & determination. A reconciliation of Space History. Please read this.

Excellent for who is a English learner.

Audible needs originals in others languages, like: Spanish, French, Italian and German languages. best wishes and greetings from Brazil.

Great story, poor engineering of sound levels

We listened to it from start to finish, but were frustrated at times by the sound levels, especially when Mary and others spoke.

wow

I have heard and read a little about the events but there are lots and lots and lots of amazing side stories

Excellent!

A very good look back at the technological difficulties in going to the moon in 1969. I thoroughly enjoyed this read.