Genesis; The Story of Apollo 8: The First Manned Flight To Another World

New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good. xvi, 299, [3] pages. Endpaper map. Occasional Footnotes. Illustrations. Timeline. Notes. Editorial Minutiae and Glossary. Bibliography. Index. Ex-library with usual markings. DJ in plastic sleeve pasted to boards. Robert Zimmerman was a science and technology writer who has contributed to American Heritage, the Sciences, and other publications. Derived from a Kirkus review: The year 1968 is memorable for any number of reasons, science writer Zimmerman reminds us, not the least of which was the historic flight of Apollo 8, the first manned space flight to slip out of Earth's gravitational tethers. Apollo 8, with Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders aboard, blasted off in late December of 1968, its intention to journey beyond Earth's orbit, slip into a lunar orbit, then escape again, and return. Its success was a momentous occasion—the frontiers of space had been effectively pushed way out. Zimmerman has chosen two aspects of the Apollo 8 mission to emphasize. First, he depicts a space program then still the venue of the hero pilot who, sacrificing family priorities and personal safety, was the unequaled Cold Warrior. Zimmerman keeps a nice steady rhythm. His second theme is to infuse the event with righteousness. It showed the world, Zimmerman claims, an "American vision of moral individuality, religious tolerance and mutual respect. Zimmerman does realize that perhaps the most lasting achievement of Apollo 8 is a photograph of Earthrise over the Moon. Never before had our planet seemed so small, so lonely, so vulnerable—or so priceless.