First published in 1994 in the NASA Monograph in Aerospace History series. From the introduction: "On 25 May 1961 President John F. Kennedy announced to the nation a goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. This decision involved much study and review prior to making it public, and tremendous expenditure and effort to make it a reality by 1969. Only the building of the Panama Canal rivaled the Apollo program's size as the largest non- military technological endeavor ever undertaken by the United States; only the Manhattan Project was comparable in a wartime...

The C-5 Galaxy is truly an effective military aircraft. It remains an essential, successful component of the U.S. military airlife capability. This book reveals the events that led to the C-5 requirement; and the controversies of its early operational existence. Details of testing, flight characteristics, operational accomplishments and world flight records are presented. Interviews from senior Lockheed management and experienced flight crews validate the C-5's decisive accomplishments.

The program to land an American on the Moon and return safely to Earth in the 1960s has been called by some observers a defining event of the twentieth century, Pulitzer Prize-winning history Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. even suggested that when Americans two centuries hence study the twentieth century, they will view the Apollo lunar landing as the critical event of the century.

This book tells the history of NASA through the Diary of a person who had an enormous impact of the program itself. It goes through original ideas about the space program to missions that took place and many interesting facts.