Author Craig Nelson restores the mystery and majesty to an event that may have become too familiar for most people to realize what a stunning achievement it represented in planning, technology, and execution. Through interviews, 23,000 pages of NASA oral histories, and declassified CIA documents on the space race, Nelson creates a vivid and detailed account of the Apollo 11 mission. From the quotidian to the scientific to the magical, readers are taken right into the cockpit with Aldrin and Armstrong and behind the scenes at Mission Control.--From publisher description

Behemoth -- The general's command -- Anything but what he is -- The sons of Galileo -- Mr. Cool Stone -- Don't eat toads -- A way to talk to God -- How the pyramids were built -- Total cold war -- The bluff at Nobleman's Grave -- The fluid front -- The transfiguration -- The Great Black Sea -- The birth of the moon -- The Eagle has wings -- One of those sad days when you lose a machine -- "Mr. President, the Eagle has landed" -- To rediscover childhood -- A tenuous grasp -- We missed the whole thing -- Through you, we touched the moon -- When all those curves lined up