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Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings

par Earl Swift

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99	8	277,164	(4.03)	Aucun
History. Technology. Nonfiction. HTML: "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 dar… (plus d'informations)

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Affichage de 1-5 de 8 (suivant | tout afficher)

A very enjoyable book covering the history of NASA and the Apollo space program. The close up insight on the lunar rover conception, design and missions made for an excellent read. The included astronaut dialog along with maps and many images gives a better understanding of the risks so few people have experienced, and how important the rovers were to the final three landings. With the Artemis program under way, it's exciting to think about future footprints and rover tracks running alongside those historic Apollo EVAs. (

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EntreNous | Jul 22, 2023 |

An excellent book about a n unjustly overlooked part of the earls space program. (

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unclebob53703 | Jul 15, 2023 |

If you’re a big fan of the Apollo missions and this is certainly one book to add to your collection. Earl Swift has shed much-needed light on the overlooked missions of Apollos 15 to 17 through the exciting addition of a lunar roving vehicle. The book is extensively researched and well written. For my taste I was less interested in all the intricate details of the design development and contracting phases that take up the first 2/3 of the book. It wasn’t until the last third of the book that we get to the actual experience of lunar rovers on the surface of the moon and the astronauts experience driving them. One of the most interesting parts of their experience was their ability to innovate an impromptu repair. And this may be a spoiler alert but I will say even duck tape went to the moon and can be used there. (

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kropferama | Jan 1, 2023 |

What's fascinating to me about this book is how much I didn't know or understand about the lunar rover. From a layman's perspective, it's easy to think the lunar rover is just a car that drives around. From the get-go, Earl Swift lays out why that's not the case -- how it has to contend with both the sun's burning temperature and Space's freezing cold; how it had to be a certain weight so it could get off Earth; how it had to be a certain size so it could be stowed with the Apollo crew. Even something as erudite as driving is different since the Moon's surface is littered with stones, craters, mountains, and hills, all of which make traversing it both difficult and dangerous.

This proved to be a page-turner for that reason. The conception and creation of the lunar rover, along with the scientific results it helped yield, are fascinating. I don't have a background in engineering or science, but I found myself inhaling pages upon pages of dense information about the different concepts and designs anyway. Swift brings all of this down to the layperson's level, which definitely helps.

I wasn't expecting to tear through this as quickly as I did, but it was well worth the read. A fascinating subject and one of the unsung products of the Space Race. (

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keithlaf | Jul 19, 2022 |

This book was interesting, but I feel like it got caught in the weeds an awful lot. There was a lot of minutiae, and while I think it helped emphasize the contractor issues with the lunar rover project, it dragged the book down quite a bit.

As far as the later Apollo voyages go, let's not forget A Man on the Moon, which covers every Apollo mission in great detail.

Honestly, I'm not sure how this book could have been improved. On the one hand, maybe it's just a dry topic? But on the other hand, I was fascinated by Digital Apollo, which may have been one of the driest books I've ever read. So I'm not really sure. (

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lemontwist | Oct 3, 2021 |

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History. Technology. Nonfiction. HTML:

"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 dar

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