Rocket Age
The Race to the Moon and What It Took to Get There
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Douyard
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By:
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George D. Morgan
About this listen
Rocket Age traces the history of spaceflight innovation from Robert Goddard's early experiments with liquid fuel rockets, through World War II and the work of Wernher von Braun and his German engineers, on to the postwar improvements made by Sergei Korolev and his team in the Soviet Union, and culminating with the historic moon walk made by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on July 20, 1969.
From designers to engineers, and even communication specialists and the builders who assembled these towering rockets, hundreds of thousands of people worked on getting humans to the moon, yet only a few have been recognized for their contributions. George D. Morgan sets the record straight by giving these forgotten figures of space travel their due.
The son of rocket scientists who worked directly on NASA projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, Morgan gives behind-the-scenes details on the famous missions, including a rare interview with Dieter Huzel-Wernher von Braun's right-hand man and a chief engineer on every major manned space program. Even the most voracious readers of US space flight history will find new things to discover in this book. Rocket Age shines a light on those that have for too long been left out of the picture of the race to land on the moon.
©2020 George D. Morgan (P)2020 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- Unabridged
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Using interviews, NASA oral histories, and recently declassified material, Into the Black pieces together the dramatic untold story of the Columbia mission and the brave people who dedicated themselves to help the United States succeed in the age of space exploration. On April 12, 1981, NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral. It was the most advanced, state-of-the-art flying machine ever built, challenging the minds and imagination of America's top engineers and pilots.
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Great Story About a Flawed Spacecraft
- By John on 12-04-16
By: Rowland White, and others
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Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program
- By: Pat Duggins
- Narrated by: Pat Duggins
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist Pat Duggins, National Public Radio's resident "space expert", chronicles the planning stages of the Space Shuttle program in the early 1970s, the thrill of the first flight in 1981, construction of the International Space Station in the 1990s, and the decision in the early 2000s to shut the program down.
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End of the Shuttle
- By Jean on 09-25-14
By: Pat Duggins
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First Man
- The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
- By: James R. Hansen
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon.
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Not really 'unabridged'
- By A Reader on 06-06-18
By: James R. Hansen
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Apollo 13
- By: Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 16 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 1970, during the glory days of the Apollo space program, NASA sent Navy Captain Jim Lovell and two other astronauts on America's fifth mission to the moon. Only 55 hours into the flight of Apollo 13, disaster struck: a mysterious explosion rocked the ship, and soon its oxygen and power began draining away. Written with all the color and drama of the best fiction, Apollo 13 (previously published as Lost Moon) tells the full story of the moon shot that almost ended in catastrophe.
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Great story but a terrible narrator
- By Nicci on 01-29-20
By: Jim Lovell, and others
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Moon Shot
- The Inside Story of Man's Greatest Adventure
- By: Dan Parry
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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‘It didn’t matter that they were now three miles beyond their target site, that communications were dropping out and that they were running low on fuel. All that mattered to Neil as he searched for a safe spot to land was that boulders littered the surface below. “Thirty seconds,” called mission control. In truth, the flight controllers were now no more than spectators, just like everybody else. No more needed to be said. It was down to Armstrong
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Wow.
- By Shellbin on 02-04-12
By: Dan Parry
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Chasing the Moon
- The People, the Politics, and the Promise That Launched America into the Space Age
- By: Robert Stone, Alan Andres
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed the nation spend $20 billion to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. Based on eyewitness accounts and newly discovered archival material, Chasing the Moon reveals the unknown stories of the fascinating individuals whose imaginative work across decades culminated in America’s momentous achievement. More than a story of engineers and astronauts, the moon landing - now celebrating its 50th anniversary - grew out of the dreams of science fiction writers, filmmakers, military geniuses, and rule-breaking scientists.
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Fifty years ago...
- By GraceAgnes on 06-14-19
By: Robert Stone, and others
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Rocket Men
- The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon
- By: Robert Kurson
- Narrated by: Ray Porter, Robert Kurson
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the moon by President Kennedy's end-of-decade deadline and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the moon - in just four months.
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The Men Who Saved 1968
- By Gillian on 04-04-18
By: Robert Kurson
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Apollo 8
- The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon
- By: Jeffrey Kluger
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In August 1968 NASA made a bold decision: In just 16 weeks, the United States would launch humankind's first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another. Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken.
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Great history of NASA and Apollo 8: a must listen
- By J on 11-17-17
By: Jeffrey Kluger
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The Burning Blue
- The Untold Story of Christa McAuliffe and NASA's Challenger Disaster
- By: Kevin Cook
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 28, 1986, NASA's space shuttle Challenger exploded after blasting off from Cape Canaveral. Christa McAuliffe, America's "Teacher in Space", was instantly killed, along with the other six members of the mission. At least that's what most of us remember. Kevin Cook tells us what really happened on that ill-fated, unforgettable day. He traces the pressures - leading from NASA to the White House - that triggered the fatal order to launch on an ice-cold Florida morning.
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Not bad, but not much new either
- By Dave on 07-27-22
By: Kevin Cook
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Empires of the Sky
- Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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At the dawn of the 20th century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way.
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Actually, a One-Sided Story
- By JP on 08-03-20
By: Alexander Rose
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A Fiery Peace in a Cold War
- Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon
- By: Neil Sheehan
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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From Neil Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic A Bright Shining Lie, comes this long-awaited, magnificent epic. Here is the never-before-told story of the nuclear arms race that changed history - and of the visionary American Air Force officer Bernard Schriever, who led the high-stakes effort. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War is a masterly work about Schriever’s quests to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring nuclear superiority, to penetrate and exploit space for America, and to build the first weapons meant to deter an atomic holocaust.
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Schriever rhymes with beaver.
- By John Gardner on 11-13-09
By: Neil Sheehan
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Skunk Works
- A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed
- By: Ben R. Rich, Leo Janos
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, the never-before-told story behind America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies. Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.
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Ben Rich's life story...but not in that order
- By Allstar on 11-05-16
By: Ben R. Rich, and others
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Vulcan 607
- By: Rowland White
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
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Shoulder to shoulder with Strategic Air Command B-52s throughout the Cold War, the big delta-winged Vulcans of the Britain's V-bomber force faced down the Soviet threat to the West. In 1982, they were just months from retirement when they flew in anger for the first time. It was to be a record-breaking mission of breathtaking audacity: a single bomber launched from a remote island airbase to carry out what would be the longest-range air attack in history. An 8,000-mile round-trip.
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Wow, incredibly gripping and entertaining
- By MortonC on 09-10-24
By: Rowland White
What listeners say about Rocket Age
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- James S.
- 04-12-23
Average at best
The claim in the book description, about how details would be uncovered regarding many of the people involved behind the scenes during early space flight, was exaggerated. It wasn't any more detailed about such people or events than any other books I've listened to or read in this genre. If anything, it was lacking some important details, and had somewhat dull filler in place of those details.
The narrator wasn't horrible; but half the time his performance made me think of high school students being forced to read in front of the class when they have no clue how to give an entertaining delivery.
There are much better options in this genre, but this one is good enough if you've already worked through the others, and you just want more space crack or you'll die.
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- Audible Customer
- 06-22-23
Narrator is great!
Narrator is smooth and easily understandable, even at 1.6, which is what I usually listen to my books on. The story is great and follows the lead up to the first person on the moon well. Even though I’ve studied this subject fairly thoroughly, there were several fun facts that I heard for the first time. If you love the space race this book is for you.
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