One Giant Leap

The Untold Story of How We Flew to the Moon

By: Charles Fishman

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

The New York Times best-selling, "meticulously researched and absorbingly written" (The Washington Post) story of the trailblazers and the ordinary Americans on the front lines of the epic Apollo 11 moon mission.

President John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 25, 1961, when he announced to Congress that the United States should land a man on the Moon by 1970. No group was more surprised than the scientists and engineers at NASA, who suddenly had less than a decade to invent space travel.

When Kennedy announced that goal, no one knew how to navigate to the Moon. No one knew how to build a rocket big enough to reach the Moon, or how to build a computer small enough (and powerful enough) to fly a spaceship there. No one knew what the surface of the Moon was like, or what astronauts could eat as they flew there. On the day of Kennedy’s historic speech, America had a total of 15 minutes of spaceflight experience - with just five of those minutes outside the atmosphere. Russian dogs had more time in space than US astronauts. Over the next decade, more than 400,000 scientists, engineers, and factory workers would send 24 astronauts to the Moon. Each hour of space flight would require one million hours of work back on Earth to get America to the Moon on July 20, 1969.

"A veteran space reporter with a vibrant touch - nearly every sentence has a fact, an insight, a colorful quote or part of a piquant anecdote" (The Wall Street Journal), and in One Giant Leap, Fishman has written the sweeping, definitive behind-the-scenes account of the furious race to complete one of mankind’s greatest achievements. It’s a story filled with surprises - from the item the astronauts almost forgot to take with them (the American flag), to the extraordinary impact Apollo would have back on Earth, and on the way we live today. From the research labs of MIT, where the eccentric and legendary pioneer Charles Draper created the tools to fly the Apollo spaceships, to the factories where dozens of women sewed spacesuits, parachutes, and even computer hardware by hand, Fishman captures the exceptional feats of these ordinary Americans. "It’s been 50 years since Neil Armstrong took that one small step. Fishman explains in dazzling form just how unbelievable it actually was" (Newsweek).

©2019 Charles Fishman (P)2019 Simon & Schuster

Loved It

Loved this book! I learned so many interesting things about the race for the moon

Enjoyed it

Especially interesting was the frank discussion of the economics and wavering political support related to NASA through the years as well as the impact, years later, of technology we take for granted today, that then, was built from scratch to facilitate the moonshot.

Worth it if you’re into it, but not THAT into it

To start, though well done, the narration is incredibly slow. Making an already filler heavy book slower than necessary. Second, very repetitive, get like the publisher gave them a word count, akin to a school essay without enough content. Finally, the story told was great, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the complexities/logistics of the Apollo missions. I felt it was really beating a dead horse when it comes to the politics of it though. In my opinion, anyone who reads a book this sense about Apollo would more than likely know that motive. Even if they didn’t, it was repeated so much I think I’d still be bored of it. Additionally, the fact checking is iffy, so I wouldn’t take anything said as gospel.
Worth a read if you’re a space enthusiast, I personally found it to be quite moving.

Good book, same history in a new direction

I loved how Charles helps to give appreciation to what Apollo did for the future of America, the cost notwithstanding.

Great Facts but Choppy

One Giant Leap is extremely good for those looking to have a better understanding of what took place to land a man on the moon. However, if you are looking for a book that’s a chronological historical reference, this probably isn’t the book for you at this time. Highly recommended you read it sometime though!

Brilliant Brain Motivation

This was beyond fascinating to me as a 6th grade girl during Apollo 11 who was more interested in the Beatles & The Monkeys than in astronauts. I listened with great eagerness & now want to buy the book to read for myself & to keep.

I thought I knew a lot about the US space program.

This book had more new to me info than any book or documentary I’ve consumed.

Space travel

I really enjoyed listening to this book about the history of space travel. I learned a lot about it.

Putting Apollo in context

I really enjoyed this book. It’s one of the first ones I have read that connected the dots from the space program to the world we live in today

A great title! Neil Armstrong summarized it perfectly.

Charles Fishman does a great job of presenting the Apollo moon landings in an historical perspective. I am old enough to remember the entire NASA space program: Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Voyager, Skylab, all the Space shuttle missions, Hubble, numerous Mars rovers, the International space station, the whole fantastic discovery of what’s out there in space. Fishman’s comparison of the successful U.S. manned moon missions to the debacle of the Vietnam War, both hallmarks of the 1960s, is a great historical snapshot of the time. His analysis of the technical challenges: no rockets large enough, no computers small enough, no software or guidance systems to operate space capsules that had yet to be designed; all while catching up to and then passing the Soviet Union’s early achievements in space flight, is presented in an interesting narrative. No one knew how, let alone how to do it within the decade as proposed by U.S. President John Kennedy. The 50 years since Apollo missions ended, has not sent people beyond earth orbit, but the digital age that followed, is a direct result of the technology push the Apollo program initiated. Fishman’s analysis includes, political, monetary, social, and technical perspectives.
If you are old enough to remember the moon landings, ‘One Giant Leap’, is a great trip down memory lane. Younger readers, for whom the moon landings are something from the history books, will find plausible explanations as to why NASA did not immediately follow going to the moon with manned missions to Mars. Instead of Mars we got the digital age, a direct spinoff of the Apollo moon mission. I am writing this review on my smart phone, the great grand child of the computers and software that had to be developed to get the Apollo mission space capsules to the moon and home again.
‘One Giant Leap, ‘ is not just about the invention of space technology but also the invention of the digital age we all live in today, presented in the context of the time, both then and now. Have fun, it’s a great story, well told.