Apollo was America's program to land men on the moon and get them safely back to the earth. In May 1961 President Kennedy gave the signal for planning and developing the machines to take men to that body. This decision, although bold and startling at the time, was not made at random nor did it lack a sound engineering base. Subcommittees of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), had regularly surveyed aeronautical needs and pointed out problems for immediate resolution and specific areas for advanced...

(Updated February 13, 2006) Project Mercury is now history. In its short span of four years, eight months, and one week as the Nation's first manned space flight program, Mercury earned a unique place in the annals of science and technology. The culmination of decades of investigation and application of aerodynamics, rocket propulsion, celestial mechanics, aerospace medicine, and electronics, Project Mercury took man beyond the atmosphere into space orbit. It confirmed the potential for man's mobility in his universe. It remains for Projects Gemini and Apollo to demonstrate that potential....

A detailed, yet highly readable book, On the Shoulders of Titans should be the starting point for all who are interested in the basic history of the Gemini Program. NASA's second human spaceflight program, Gemini laid the groundwork for the more ambitious Apollo program which put astronauts on the Moon.