For All Mankind

by Harry Hurt III, Al Reine (Interviews By)

Between December 1968 and December 1972, twenty-four men captured the imagination of the world as they voyaged to the moon. For All Mankind presents a dramatic, engrossing, and comprehensive account of what President John F. Kennedy called "the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked." Based on exclusive interviews with the Apollo astronauts, For All Mankind contains the most comprehensive and revealing firsthand accounts of space travel ever assembled. This edition has been reissued in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of the first lunar landing.

Genres: Space, Nonfiction, Science, American History, History, Aviation

First published October 1, 1988

About the author

Harry Hurt III (born November 13, 1951)[1] is an American author and journalist. He was formerly senior editor of the Texas Monthly and a Newsweek correspondent, and his articles have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Esquire and Playboy. His books include Texas Rich, a biography of oil tycoon H. L. Hunt and family; and Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump (1993), an unauthorized biography of real estate mogul and 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Hurt was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Margaret (Birting) Hurt and Harry Hurt Jr., who was president of Hurt Oil Company in Houston. He graduated from Choate School in 1969 and Harvard College in 1974, where he wrote for the Harvard Crimson. He worked for the Texas Monthly in Austin, serving as senior editor from 1975 to 1986. He later moved to Sag Harbor, New York, and married Alison Becker in 1993.He also had an early career in professional golf, which he revisited in the mid 1990s in writing Chasing the Dream: A Mid-life Quest for Fame and Fortune on the Pro Golf Circuit.

Reviews

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating memoir of the Apollo program, including an overview of what we learned from Gemini and Mercury leading into Apollo. It’s mostly filled with quotes from those taking part in our attempt to reach the moon, leaning heavily into the various trios of astronauts in the Apollo launches.

Where it loses steam is in the final chapter outlining the indirect benefits of the $40 billion spent on the Apollo program and its predecessors. The advances in computer miniaturization led directly into the home computer revolution where:

…two California whiz kids named Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak introduced the first home computer, the Apple I. Their amazing machine, which was made possible by Wozniak’s invention of the floppy disk, spawned a whole new generation of consumer products and corporate spin-offs.

Wozniak did not, of course, invent the floppy disk, nor the floppy disk drive, nor did his floppy disk drive make the Apple I possible. He did repurpose and vastly simplify existing drives to get an inexpensive version for the Apple II, and like all of Wozniak’s work it was an amazing display of doing more than anyone thought possible with what was available. But it wasn’t an invention, it did not make the Apple I possible, and, for that matter, neither the Apple I nor the Apple II were the home computer that spawned all others.

Describing how much we’ve learned about the moon, he recounted how, in 1961,

Arthur C. Clarke published a foreboding best-seller entitled A Fall of Moondust. Basing his sci-fi narrative on a widely accepted scientific theory that the moon was merely a ball of loose particulates, Clarke described a catastrophic lunar landing attempt in which the astronauts are suffocated in a cloud of moondust.

If Clarke described any such thing in A Fall of Moondust it was tangential at best, and I can’t find it now. The book wasn’t about an astronaut landing. It was about a tourist bus. Clarke writes that the astronauts expected a loose surface and were prepared for it. It was the tourists—astronauts only in the sense that any moon tourists would be astronauts—who ran into trouble.

Neither one of these is a particularly momentous issue. But they are literally the only two items in the chapter that I had any knowledge about going in. That doesn’t bode well for the rest of the chapter at best, or for the rest of the book at worst.

Hopefully, the quotes from the astronauts are accurate, because they provide a great insight into what it felt like to be thrust into space on a giant tube of explosive fuel toward a tiny and airless planet far away.

“It feels just like it sounds.”—Ken Mattingly

Even digestion was different in space. One thing they tried to do was get the gases out of the water as they mixed it with their dried foods.

“It wasn’t long before we discovered that the little device designed at the last minute to ventilate hydrogen from the water, as it passed from the gun to the food bag, was not always the success its designers had hoped. Frequently, the hydrogen tended to do what it had done on previous flights: It stayed in the water and was swallowed by us. The result was stomach gas. At one point on the trip back Earth it got so bad it was suggested we shut down our altitude-control thrusters and do the job ourselves.”—Buzz Aldrin

Life in the voyage to the moon wasn’t all swamp gas. The astronauts also recount moments of sublime beauty, especially the view of the Earth in full or its “Earthrise” while in orbit around the moon.

“This is not at all like sunrise on Earth, whose brilliance commands one’s attention; it is easily missed and therefore all the more precious.”—Mike Collins

The book is also comprehensive about what it means to fly to the moon, covering the brief period of celebrity after landing, and how it faded as trips to the moon became viewed as commonplace even as they faded away.

There are two sets of wonderful color and black and white photos bound into the book, from launches, to the earth as seen by the astronauts, to a painting of the astronauts as painted by an astronaut.

“The bond we have is not necessarily a bond of friendship. But it’s something very special—it’s a bond of confidence.”—Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan

[Claudio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nonostante qualche imperdonabile errore (l’autore ha le idee un po’ confuse sulla fisica e sulle leggi della meccanica e della gravitazione in particolare!) il libro si legge molto bene e da una prospettiva nuova su quei tempi ormai lontani e così diversi da oggi. Molto ben documentato soprattutto sul piano umano, lettura assolutamente consigliata per tutti coloro che vogliono capire l’avventura spaziale americana.

[Michael Sparks · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you know about space history, many of the stories will be old hat for you. If you don't know about space history, this will be an exhilarating journey through the lives and adventures of 24 men who walked on another world. Thoroughly enjoyed, but I think the story gets boring by apollo 14.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of the 24 men who went into lunar orbit between 1968 and 1972, 12 of them actually set foot on the moon. This is an anthology of these momentous occasions as related by the Apollo astronauts themselves during recent interviews in which they reflect on their thoughts, anxieties, excitement and initial sensations. The book is divided into four sections which compare the unique experiences of each mission - "Go for the Moon" relates the build-up to, and the voyage from, launch to orbit; "Men Walk on the Moon" reveals hitherto unshared dramas and feelings, e.g. the ambivalence felt by Buzz Aldrin as he recalls that epic first step by Neil Armstrong and how his own excitement was marred by his bitterness at not being the man to take that significant step for mankind; "Return to Earth" recreates the homeward journey and investigates the effects on the astronauts and what has become of them - only one has remained a NASA space pilot; finally "2001 and Beyond" explores the implications for space travel.

[Darkpool · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I've read mixed reviews of this book on the grounds of some inaccuracies, I've recently acquired a copy.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too dry! I've officially given up on ever finishing this book.

[Alan Mauerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the few books i have actually purchased since I liked it so much.