Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles
by ROGER BILSTEIN

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Book Reviews of Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles

Book Review: Interesting, if you like that kind of thing
Summary: 3 Stars

There is some great sections that illuminate just how hard it is to build a rocket that big, and the problems that have to be overcome when trying to do something genuinely new and innovative.

A Few downsides. The book does at times without warning dive into detail that most readers may not grasp - especially the terminology of manufacturing and construction. Not a big problem is you are willing to skim over it.

There is lots of detail on how the effort was managed, which feels dated and to me at least not very interesting.

The information on the Instrumentation unit focuses on the hardware side and has almost no mention of the software process, which I'd have thought would be interesting given the (lack of) maturity of the software trade at the time.

All in all a good read if you just want to know how they did it, and know the basics already.

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