Footprints

by Douglas MacKinnon and Joseph Baldanza

Book Overview

Footprints: The 12 Men Who Walked On The Moon Reflect On Their Flights, Their Lives, And The Future This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0874919215
• ISBN13: 9780874919219
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Acropolis Books (NY)
• Length: 307 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Interesting 20 years later...

Having worked at Kennedy on Apollo, I eagerly checked this book out of the library when I saw it listed. It is very interesting to read what the moonwalkers thought 20 years ago and now 40-ish years after their flights. Their predictions of the promise of shuttle flights, Mars missions, space station operations and return missions to the moon are fascinating. I liked the question and answer format. As mentioned elsewhere, there are way too many typos and it is obvious that it was transcribed from audio tapes by somebody not very familiar with the space program. On the plus side, only a few technical errors.

Even more interesting 17 years later

The book was written to go with the 20th anniversary of the first landing, and has interviews with 11 of the 12 moonwalkers. Neil Armstrong did not participate, so the authors included excerpts from the public record on Armstrong. Obviously, no book like this can be written today, as some have died. The authors are fortunate to have done this project then, as Jim Irwin was gone before the 25th. I strongly recommend serious Apollo fans include this in their reading list. Most likely, though, you'll never be able to, as my guess is the book did not sell well and has mostly disappeared. Grab it if you see a copy. The casual space reader would be better served by others in the excellent collection of narratives and autobiographies. The timing of the book makes for good copy years later. The American glow from the moon landings was long gone, with no follow-up toward permanent work toward the moon. The shuttle had its history of delays, and the Challenger disaster a couple years earlier had prompted re-examination of the role of space and NASA's priorities. The space station was still in the future, and the Soviets were actively working toward a permanent presence in space. Mars looked like a feasible goal that might prompt a serious commitment by now. The astronauts talk about all of those topics and more, with excellent perspective and their own biases. Their predictions vary widely. There is no mindless optimism - these are serious guys concerned about the future. Many of them offer suggestions for revitalizing the space program and/or what its priorities should be. The section for each astronaut has some basic bio information and a summary of his role in the space program and what happened in the years since. The bio material about who got what flights reminds the reader of the twists and turns that deviated from the projected crews (e.g., Bean owes his flight to the death of CC Williams). Then it's straight Q & A. Thus, the typical narrative content and weaving of a story is not here, which is what makes this different. What comes through for each astronaut is often what you might have expected. However, there is often a telling detail that I hadn't heard elsewhere. One point several agreed on is that landing the LM was a lot simpler than night landings on a carrier. Buzz Aldrin talks about his struggles after returning to earth, his relationship with his father, and re-hashes the decision of who went first. Jim Irwin talks mainly about religious aspects, as does Edgar Mitchell, along with his psychic work that became his focus post-Apollo. Shepard declines again to say whether he would have overridden the abort on Apollo 14. Mitchell says they would have. Shepard said "The Right Stuff" movie was OK, but "did a disservice to a lot of people" in how they were portrayed. Conrad agrees ("it was terrible"), while liking the book a lot. The thought of Conrad and Tom Wolfe together makes me smile. Aldrin says he wouldn't trade being on the fir

first real look at moonwalkers, and their lives

this was, to my knowledge, the first book done on all 12 moonwalkers,/together, and which tells about the men, their respective missions,and rest of lives,upto late 1980's!what they achieved as astronauts,men, and how they ended upin later life! interesting!

TELLS ABOUT ALL MOONWLKERS

This book tells the reader a little about all 12 men that walked on the Moon, and their reflections of their experience, their lives a little, and how Project Apollo and being an astronaut changed their lives forever! Could read 1000 books like this one, and never get tired of it