A Man on the Moon

Andrew Chaikin recounts the Apollo program through the astronauts who flew it, from Apollo 7 to Apollo 17 between 1968 and 1972. A decade in the making, the account draws on hundreds of hours of interviews with all 24 moon voyagers and those who supported them on Earth. It covers the Apollo 1 fire during a simulated launch, the flight of Apollo 8 around the moon, the first moonwalk by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and the competition for seats on moon flights, and Alan Shepard's return from grounded pilot to moon voyager at 47. Published in 1994, it later formed the basis of From the Earth to the Moon, a 1998 TV miniseries.

Jason Kottke, a self-described space nerd, called it a great history of the Apollo program in his best of 2018 media diet. Morgan Housel described walking on the moon as probably the coolest, hardest and riskiest feat humans have ever attempted.