<story><title>July 20, 1969: One Giant Leap For Mankind (2013)</title><url>http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11_40th.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tdicola</author><text>The thing that really shocked me about the Apollo missions was how quickly they jumped from testing the hardware to actual mission to the moon.  The _second_ manned launch of Apollo (and _first_ manned launch of the incredible Saturn V rocket) went straight out to the moon and orbited before returning back to Earth!  The next missions did a few tests of the lunar lander in space, and the fifth manned mission was Apollo 11 which finally landed.  Crazy to think of all the systems, hardware, etc. that just had a couple shakedown flights before the real deal.  Incredibly impressive engineering to pull off such a feat without more problems.</text></comment>
<story><title>July 20, 1969: One Giant Leap For Mankind (2013)</title><url>http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo11_40th.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jf</author><text>I highly recommend the Discovery Channel mini-series &amp;quot;When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions&amp;quot;. This mini-series covers the entire breadth of the NASA missions, from Mercury to the International Space Station. This series is available on Netflix: www.netflix.com&amp;#x2F;WiMovie&amp;#x2F;70218722&lt;p&gt;If &amp;quot;When We Left Earth&amp;quot; sparks your interest. I suggest watching &amp;quot;Apollo 13&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;The Right Stuff&amp;quot; next.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, I&amp;#x27;m currently reading the excellent book &amp;quot;Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module&amp;quot;. This book gives an insiders view of what it took to build the Lunar Module (LM). I particularly appreciate that the book covers a lot of the hard work, arguments, and drama that are often forgotten when we romanticize the past.</text></comment>