Apollo 14: The NASA Mission Reports: Apogee Books Space Series 14

Another great volume in the Apogee series on the Apollo Program. Apollo 14 followed the frightening Apollo 13 flight a year later. 14 had its moments of high anxiety as well. This volume is highly recommended for any one wanting to learn about the Apollo Program. Al Shepard, who was America's first man in space in 1961, gets his chance to walk on the moon in 1971.

Apollo 14 may be best known for Alan Shepard's return to space (and perhaps his golf shot on the moon). But it was also the first serious science mission as well as the return to flight after the near-disaster of Apollo 13. As usual, the text includes the pre-mission press and internal reports, and the post-mission summaries and crew debriefings. The accompanying CD contains hundreds of photos from the mission as well as an interview with astronaut Ed Mitchell.Yet another valuable volume for the space enthusiast.

First, I must make a terrible confession. I have purchased the majority of the NASA Mission Reports and undoubtedly will not stop until I have all of them. This compulsion is looked upon with disfavor by my wife, but I cannot help it. Second, I am completely amazed at how much the publisher is able to cram onto the enclosed CD's. On my latest purchase of the Apollo 14 Mission Reports, I guesstimate that there must be over 5 hours of just audio recordings, not counting all the video, documentation, and photos. My one and only caveat is that I wish the graphics and video were in higher resolution. However, in order to do that they would have to either delete some material or step up to multiple CD's or a DVD format. All-in-all, the NASA Mission Reports are a bargain for the astronautics/astronomy enthusiast. You get a closeup view of history in the making. Bravo to the author and publisher for making these available.

Once again, Robert Godwin and Apogee Books have compiled a great set of NASA documents about the Apollo era of space exploration. This time, as the title indicates, he has chosen Apollo 14. This mission was the first mission after the aborted Apollo 13 flight and had Alan Shepard as the mission commander.The book opens with the usual NASA mission press kit. Unlike earlier missions, the press kit is significantly smaller. The next portion of the books contains an excellent section devoted to describing the ALSEP (Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package) hardware that would be placed on the moon. In my many years at NASA, I have yet to see such comprehensive documentation of this hardware package. The book concludes with the post launch mission operations report and the crew debrief.The debrief section, which is over half the book, contains the crew comments and feelings about various parts of the mission and for the most part avoids the technical language that many of the NASA documents include. The crew debrief contains crew comments from the suiting up phase to the landing, plus comments about the training (did it or did not help the crew). There are many sections that provide a thorough crew description about the docking problems (which almost aborted the mission), lunar EVAs, and the lunar science conducted from orbit. I always find the crew debriefing quite enjoyiable, because it is the closest thing to being there.Some general information that might be useful.1) These reports are just scanned-in documents from previously released NASA press kits, etc., In order to preserve the spirit of the original reports, all typographical and grammatical errors have NOT been fixed.2) Proceeds from the book goes to "The Watch" an asteroid impact research project of the Space Frontier Foundation. In other words, Apogee Books is making very little off the sale of US government produced books.3) Many people have asked why the post mission reports are not included. Since NASA has published many books with hundred of pages (The NASA SP series), and the data from these missions is still being analyzed, it would be impossible to do.