Echoes Among the Stars

the long version

"Walsh's narrative begins just before the Mercury program, covers the original seven astronauts, the Gemini and Apollo programs, through Skylab and up to the space shuttle. The glories and emotion of space exploration are presented against the backdrop of the Cold War, the presidential administrations of Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter, and other significant events in U.S. history. The positive accomplishments of the astronauts are placed in the context of an increasingly negative domestic situation in the 1960s and 1970s, the Bay of Pigs, civil rights, assassinations, growing involvement in and dissension about Vietnam, the Watergate scandal, and Nixon's resignation. A more readable, colorful picture of the U.S. space program has not been available to a nontechnical audience.". "Enlivened with photos and a chronology that includes the Soviet's progress in space and important domestic political and cultural events in the United States, this book is the ideal introduction for any reader to the great technical triumphs of the generation following World War II."--BOOK JACKET.