Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings
Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings
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Publisher's Hardcover ©2021--
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HarperCollins
Annotation: "THRILLING. ... Up-end[s] the Apollo narrative entirely." —The Times (London) A "brilliantly observed" (Newsweek) and "e... more
Genre: [Engineering]
 
Reviews: 3
Catalog Number: #289205
Format: Publisher's Hardcover
Publisher: HarperCollins
Copyright Date: 2021
Edition Date: 2021 Release Date: 07/06/21
Pages: 372 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates
ISBN: 0-06-298653-8
ISBN 13: 978-0-06-298653-5
Dewey: 629.45
LCCN: 2021006863
Dimensions: 24 cm
Language: English
Reviews:
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sat May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2021)

Starred Review The final series of moon landings of NASA's Apollo program did not capture attention in the same way the initial moon landing did, and they lacked the drama of the near disaster of Apollo 13. But the last flights' attempts to substantially increase scientific knowledge about the moon's geologic structure nevertheless made them significant. No longer were the astronauts to simply walk around on the moon; they needed to travel greater distances. Accomplishing this involved overcoming enormous engineering difficulties to manufacture vehicles that could navigate unknown features of the lunar surface. Journalist Swift (Chesapeake Requiem, 2018; Auto Biography, 2014) details the story of the development of the lunar rover, focusing in particular on three pioneering engineers who made the craft a reality: Wernher von Braun, M. G. Becker, and Ferenc Pavlics. All of them immigrants, they fled war and revolution to contribute to America's spaceflight success. Swift ably outlines their achievements in technology and project management, clarifying complex issues in layperson's language. Even those who think they already know plenty about America's space program will find deeper insights here. Includes photographs and bibliographic notes.

Kirkus Reviews

An overlooked achievement in the initial series of moon landings gets a well-deserved spotlight.Though the later landings are often overshadowed by the first, journalist Swift shows us their significant accomplishments. He reminds readers that during the first three landings, the moon walkers literally walked, wearing clunky spacesuits that limited their mobility and kept them close to the lander. Each of the final three missions arrived with a truly extraordinary vehicle, a superlight, four-wheeled, battery-powered rover capable of carrying two astronauts over an area the size of Manhattan. A footnote in thick histories of space travel, the rover was designed with the primitive technology of the time, blew through its budget, and threatened to overshoot its deadline by months. Still, it changed everything about the missions. In the enthusiasm following the 1962 announcement of Apollo, NASA assumed that Americans would go to the moon, stay, and explore. Swift delivers a long, often hair-raising description of the technical marvels-transporter, fliers, mobile laboratories, and even jetpacks-that planners considered, many of which would require a separate rocket launch. By 1967, in an ominous forecast of what was to follow, Congressional budget-cutters had regained their influence, and all were cancelled. Recognizing that astronauts wouldn't accomplish much on foot, engineers proposed a miniature vehicle, folded up and stored under the lunar lander. Work did not begin until 1969, months after the first landing, and the contract required completion in 18 months. This was not nearly enough time. Nothing (schedule, budget, weight, design) went as planned, and Swift describes the mad scramble that followed. This section contains more technical details than readers require, but few will give up, and their reward is a happy ending. The vehicles worked beautifully, and the three final missions produced an avalanche of findings that would have been impossible without them.An expert account heavy on technical details but still a pleasurable reading experience.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Journalist Swift (Chesapeake Requiem) chronicles the work of the engineers, geologists, project managers, and astronauts who took lunar rovers to the moon in this detailed history. Rovers were a key development in space exploration, Swift writes, and they -redefined lunar exploration, space science, and NASA-s expectations of what could be achieved.- Swift describes the far-reaching vision of ex-Nazi Wernher von Braun, -the conceptual father of lunar mobility,- who foresaw the use of lunar vehicles in 1952, well before the start of the Space Race. He also tells of how the United States Geological Survey built testing grounds for the vehicles by using dynamite to create a cratered landscape similar to that of the moon, and surveys the impact rovers had on the final three Apollo missions: astronauts were able to conduct -real science, far from the safety of their lunar module- on -exploration measured in miles, not minutes.- Though things starts slowly and the early sections are full of dry technicalities, the narrative picks up steam as the rovers are developed and sent into space (the depictions of lunar travels are a particular highlight). Space buffs will definitely want to check this one out. Agent: David Black, David Black Literary. (July)

Reviewing Agencies: - Find Other Reviewed Titles
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Sat May 01 00:00:00 CDT 2021)
Kirkus Reviews
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
Bibliography Index/Note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Reading Level: 6.0
Interest Level: 9+

"THRILLING. ... Up-end[s] the Apollo narrative entirely." —The Times (London)

A "brilliantly observed" (Newsweek) and "endlessly fascinating" (WSJ) rediscovery of the final Apollo moon landings, revealing why these extraordinary yet overshadowed missions—distinguished by the use of the revolutionary lunar roving vehicle—deserve to be celebrated as the pinnacle of human adventure and exploration.

One of The Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of the Month

8:36 P.M. EST, December 12, 1972: Apollo 17 astronauts Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt braked to a stop alongside Nansen Crater, keenly aware that they were far, far from home. They had flown nearly a quarter-million miles to the man in the moon’s left eye, landed at its edge, and then driven five miles in to this desolate, boulder-strewn landscape. As they gathered samples, they strode at the outermost edge of mankind’s travels. This place, this moment, marked the extreme of exploration for a species born to wander. 

A few feet away sat the machine that made the achievement possible: an electric go-cart that folded like a business letter, weighed less than eighty pounds in the moon’s reduced gravity, and muscled its way up mountains, around craters, and over undulating plains on America’s last three ventures to the lunar surface. 

In the decades since, the exploits of the astronauts on those final expeditions have dimmed in the shadow cast by the first moon landing. But Apollo 11 was but a prelude to what came later: while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin trod a sliver of flat lunar desert smaller than a football field, Apollos 15, 16, and 17 each commanded a mountainous area the size of Manhattan. All told, their crews traveled fifty-six miles, and brought deep science and a far more swashbuckling style of exploration to the moon. And they triumphed for one very American reason: they drove.

In this fast-moving history of the rover and the adventures it ignited, Earl Swift puts the reader alongside the men who dreamed of driving on the moon and designed and built the vehicle, troubleshot its flaws, and drove it on the moon’s surface. Finally shining a deserved spotlight on these overlooked characters and the missions they created, Across the Airless Wilds is a celebration of human genius, perseverance, and daring.

The difference it made
Nation of immigrants
Principal considerations
"We must do this!"
A painfully trying task
Across the airless wilds
Tire tracks.

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