Impressions and thoughts on "Moon Shot"

A few thoughts about the book, "Moon Shot".  In general, the book is about the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States- after Sputnik and from the American point of view.  Two of the original seven astronauts- Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton- are the authors.  But it is clear that it wasn't written by these two guys.  It reads a little like a newspaper or a truncated biography.  Nevertheless, it is an interesting read.

It may be little known, but the Russians really were trying to win the Space Race.  Right up until the end, they were trying to get at least to the Moon with a fly by.  The race was real.  There was some real doubt as to who would win, but in the end, it was the United States that won going away- so to speak.

It was hard to tell from the narrative, so I'll speculate.  It looks like the Russian's big super rocket wasn't staged.  It looked like it was just too big and complex and that is why it failed.  Several launches were attempted, but they all failed.  The last one caused a lot of damage to the launch facility.  It may have broken the Russian's spirit.  They pretty much gave up.  Instead of making big rockets that would go to the Moon, they decided to do space stations instead.  This is where they have had their greatest success.

America went ahead with it's big rockets though.  But this book only covered the Space program up until Apollo Soyuz.

What surprised me was despite the successes of Apollo, that there was so much opposition to the program.  It is a shame, almost a tragedy, that more wasn't done.  This was an excellent program that was shot down in its prime, just as President Kennedy was.  We could have gotten to Mars with that Saturn V rocket.  We could have established bases on the Moon with it.  Yet it was all thrown away.  It was considered a waste.  But the real waste was in scrapping the program.  Killing the program wasn't about ending waste.  It wasn't shown in this book, but my opinion is that there is something or someone wanting to hold back the space program.  It is not an inspiring thought.

The Russians gave up because of a lack of technical expertise.  Our guys quit because of the politicians.  They just didn't see enough advantage in the program.  The space race itself looks silly now.  But that wasn't the real reason to go.  The real reason to go was not to create a spectacular show for the public, but to do real things that mattered.  The politicians see it as a show.  Maybe too many people think of it as a show.  But there is real opportunity in space.  It is a curious thing to observe and to note that so many people fail to see it.