Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon

Loved this one! The well-written, snappy prose, paired with excellent and relevant photos, tells an engaging story of the Apollo 11 mission as a whole, from dreams to design to success. Provides excellent back matter with related information, resources, and avenues for further exploration.

Somehow I missed this book when it came out. Catherine Thimmesh has done a fantastic job extracting information from the reams available, to write this engrossing title for children (and it certainly holds adult interest). The subtitle - How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon- certainly conveys the enormous task, both the moon landing and the researching of it. Despite reading this over 40 years after the fact, she impresses upon us the enormity of the mission, to land on the moon AND return to earth alive.
The famous aspects (Grumman engineering of the LEM), and those lesser known (design of film which could withstand decontamination) are all here. There are lesser known griping moments, such as men risking their lives during a show more fierce Australian windstorm so the world could view the images from the moon on their televisions. The selection of photography included and its integration with the text is excellent.
If I were to recommend only one book to children on Apollo 11, this would be it. show less

This account of the almost unbelievable effort it took to land the Apollo 11 astronauts on the Moon grips the reader from the start by quoting the speech that President Nixon had been prepared to give in the event that Armstrong and Aldrin died in the attempt. ("Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.... ") There is a lot of text, but that text is dramatic, quoting dozens of the participants on Apollo's massive backstage, both well-known and obscure; It is lavishly illustrated with photographs, and beautifully designed. A treat in the last several pages is snapshots of the people who are quoted in the book. Although the publisher states that the book is for older show more elementary students, like Almost Astronauts, I think it's suitable and fascinating for older kids and even adults; there are several pages of notes and bibliography at the end to inspire further research. show less

It’s July 1969, moments after the Lunar Module Eagle had separated from the Command Module Columbia, and 33, 500 feet above the surface of the moon. The Eagle is just beginning its decent.

"Suddenly, the master alarm in the lunar module rang out for attention with all the racket of a fire bell going off in a broom closet. “Program alarm,” astronaut Neil Armstrong called from the LM (‘LEM’) in a clipped but calm voice. “It’s a twelve-oh-two.”
…
Translation: We have a problem! What is it? Do we land? Do we abort? Are we in danger? Are we blowing up? Tell us what to do. Hurry!"

The speech for President Nixon to deliver in the event the astronauts died on the moon had already been written. Fortunately, other back-up plans were show more in place. Back on earth at mission control in Houston, the Flight Controller looked to mission controller for guidance and navigation, who intern was in touch with the computer programmer in the back room, meanwhile the Capsule Communicator (CapCom) recalled a similar alarm in a simulated training mission. The LM’s computer was momentarily too busy. Twenty seconds from the call from Eagle the CapCom relayed the message to proceed with the landing as long as the alarm was not constant. Eleven minutes later Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land a spacecraft on the moon.

The subtitle says it all, 400,000 people were working with the astronauts, everyone in Mission Control, the engineers working for the contractors that built the Eagle, the Columbia and the parachute system that would return them to earth, the computer programmers, the seamstresses who sewed the spacesuits for the moonwalk, and the radio telescope operators in Australia battling 70 mile an hour winds to capture the television signal and transmit it to an anxious planet.

Thimmesh has carefully selected stories of people behind the headlines and presented them in a marvelously illustrated chronicle of the near-crisis by near-crisis events from lift off to splash down during the first moon landing. The Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association awarded the author the 2007 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal for the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding year. show less

When I was a student, my vision of science was centered on amazing individuals like Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. I read everything I could about George Washington Carver and there was a time I said that I wanted to be Thomas Edison when I grew up. In my mind science required a genius. As I teach, I recognize more and more the essential need for a group approach to science. No longer does science insist on genius; far more essential is the hard work and team efforts of people putting in that sweat equity. Team Moon shows this in a gorgeous book that reads like a thriller. Mere seconds were the difference between Apollo 11 landing on the moon and changing the national psyche and failure, which has consequences we may only know in our show more imaginations. The Apollo landing is a massive scientific project involving around 400,000 people, some smarter than others, but all cooperating and reaching for a shared goal. This is a more accurate picture of the scientific community on a day-to-day basis. We all want to find that next Einstein. Even if we do find her, however, science requires each of us to work hard and do our part. This book is beautifully bound and produced. The photos are stunning. The references are complete. Team Moon is this year’s Sibert award winner and it is well deserved. A must buy for every library in the country! show less

This book would be useful to use while teaching about the moon landing or even to use while teaching about team work. I feel like this book was really insightful. It gave me a new perspective on the moon landing and allowed me to visualize th from more than just what actually happened. I got to see it from the seamstress who made the space suit and from the engineer. It was really interesting to not recognize that perspective before and then read the book and realize that occurs all throughout life. Team work is very important and that was a large lesson in the book.

Retelling: This is a thrilling account of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Author Catherine Thimmesh emphasizes two characteristics of the mission. First, the shear number of people involved in the landing (400,000). Also, the degree of unpredictability and preparedness. One by one, she retells major fears on the day of the landing with many actual quotes from the engineers and technicians involved.

Thoughts and Feelings: WOW! Can you imagine 40,000 people coordinating their efforts to achieve a single purpose, landing a man on the moon. This book called up a few memories from my not so distant past that allowed me to fully appreciate the level of planning and attention to detail Apollo 11 needed to have. In my first job at a theater show more company, I remember leaving a light off in the lobby, making it more difficult to patrons to navigate. If I had been a NASA engineer, a single switch could have spelled the end of a life and a nation's dream.

I also remembered becoming frustrated with a plastic parachute guy from the dollar-store when it failed to open. NASA solved that problem beautifully with real people using their ingenuity to invent a pilot parachute to force the much larger parachutes attached out of their storage unit.

The NASA team took the expression "better safe than sorry" when they quarantined the astronauts for a month after landing and invented a special chemical de-toxification substance for the canister of film with footage of the landing, just in case there were life-threatening viruses on a space rock with conditions that made it completely uninhabitable by any living thing.

...400,000! show less