Stages to Saturn

“This is the story of the Apollo and Saturn programs that need to be told. . . . It is a first-class organisational and technological history, and it stands alone as perhaps the very best of the overall government ‘official histories.’”—Balloons to Drones

"A classic study of the moon rocket that launched the Apollo astronauts on their voyages of discovery."—Roger Launius, chief historian, National Air and Space Museum

"This volume is just one of the many excellent histories produced by government and contract historians for the NASA History Office. . . . Roger Bilstein gracefully wends his way through a maze of technical documentation to reveal the important themes of this story. Rarely has such a nuts-and-bolts tale been so gracefully told."—Air University Review

"Easily the best book of the NASA History Series. . . . Starting with the earliest rockets, Bilstein traces the development of the family of massive Saturn launch vehicles that carried the Apollo astronauts to the moon and boosted Skylab into orbit."—Technology and Culture A classic study of the development of the Saturn launch vehicle that took Americans to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s, Stages to Saturn is one of the finest official histories ever produced. The Saturn rocket was developed as a means of accomplishing President John F. Kennedy's goal for the United States to reach the moon before the end of the decade.