Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11’s lunar landing. The University of Nebraska Press (as previously mentioned on this blog) is the publisher of the Outward Odyssey series, which chronicles the evolution of spaceflight. One of the books in this series, In the Shadow of the Moon, chronicles the early days of the space race with Russia through the July 20, 1969 moon landing.

I love this book. It’s fast-paced and suspenseful and full of interviews with astronauts, their families, and others instrumental in reaching the moon. It’s also a wealth of moon-landing trivia including:

– The average age of the crew on the Apollo 11 mission was only 26. 

– The spacecraft had just 17 seconds worth of fuel left at the time of the moon landing, and the mission was nearly abandoned. 

– While the Apollo 11 crew hoped theirs would be the mission to finally make it to the moon, they were far from certain that it would actually happen and were as surprised, awed and emotional as the rest of the world when the landing actually took place.

Learn more about In the Shadow of the Moon and the Outward Odyssey series here. And click here for a wealth of articles related to the moon landing from the New York Times. Happy lunar-landing anniversary!