In 1961, President Kennedy issued a challenge: before the end of the decade, the United States would land a person on the moon and return him safely to Earth--a bold proclamation at the time given that only one US astronaut had ever been to space, for just 15 minutes. To answer President
Kennedy's call, NASA embarked on the Apollo missions: a complicated, dangerous, and expensive adventure involving 400,000 people. Before the missions were over,...