Very good history of John C. Houbolt, the unsung engineer who persisted in pushing, pushing, PUSHING for Lunar-Orbit-Rendevous as the *way* to land on the moon. Good detail and the real voices of the participants in the space program. While he didn't create the mode, he's the one who really made sure that it was not ignored - without it, it's not likely we'd have made the moon landing within John Kennedy's goal. ( )

Summer 2019 (audiobook);

When the Audible Originals of choice for July included The Man Who Knew The Way to the Moon, in the same month I'd be going to NASA to celebrate the 50th and while I was already deeply immersed in the 11 new specials coming out for said-anniversary, this one was an instant scoop-up no-brainer.

The piece is about John C. Houbolt's one-man quest, refusing to let anyone get in his way, that made Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR) possible. While I had heard a handful of pieces that had to do with Houboult, none of them had been this in-depth, nor had any of them made me feel so completely aware of how long, how hard, and exactly what the opposition he'd faced was.

This was incredibly detailed, amazingly easy to follow, and eye-opening in several places. I have to give a round of applause to the fact the piece is done very even-handedly, talking about the pro's and con's of everyone's actions, including Houbolts, and whether any of them are to be celebrated or denigrated.

And now I have a need to go learn all I can about Project Paperclip next.

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A deep dive into John Houbolt who, while he didn’t originate the idea of LOR (lunar orbit rendezvous), he certainly championed it when others were opposed or skeptical.

If you liked this, try the BBC podcast 13 Minutes To The Moon which is a deep dive into the first landing on the moon and they’ve digitally cleaned up the radio transmissions and it sounds wonderful. The second season is just as good in examining the aborted Apollo 13 mission. ( )

An audio performance (including lots of interviews, clips, and other materials -- not a strict reading of a book, or a cast performance of a book) about the selection of Lunar Orbital Rendezvous and the engineer, John Houbolt, who went around process and hierarchy and pushed for that technique even when it was openly opposed by most of the rest of NASA's management. The story itself is interesting (although Houbolt seems to have been excessively bitter after his idea was accepted, over not getting enough recognition after the fact), but the presentation isn't great. ( )

A completely unknown (to most of us) engineer who is almost completely responsible for the fact that we landed on the moon and came back safely before the end of the 60's and why we beat the Russians there. His idea of sending up a command module to circle the moon while having a lunar module to actually land on the moon and then rendezvous with the command module and return to earth was extremely controversial and and opposed by almost everyone else who instead wanted a single vehicle to land on the moon, blast off and return to earth. It would have weighed far too much and would take far too much fuel to be a workable solution for the 1960's and the Russians likely would have beaten us. This is a great story of the engineer who sacrificed his career to make it happen. ( )