Includes bibliographical references (pages 515-526) and index

Preface: Kennedy's new ocean -- Rockets. Dr. Robert Goddard meets Buck Rogers ; Kennedy, von Braun, and the crucible of World War II ; Surviving a savage war ; Who's afraid of the V-2? -- Generation Sputnik. Spooked into the space race ; Sputnik revolution ; Missile gaps and the creation of NASA ; Mercury Seven to the rescue ; Kennedy for President -- Moonbound. Skyward with James Webb ; Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard ; ""Going to the moon": Washington, DC, May 25, 1961 ; Searching for moonlight in Tulsa and Vienna ; Moon momentum with television and Gus Grissom ; Godspeed, John Glenn ; Scott Carpenter, Telstar, and presidential space touring -- Projects Gemini and Apollo. "We choose to go to the moon": Rice University, September 12, 1962 ; Gemini Nine and Wally Schirra ; State of space exploration ; "The space effort must go on" ; Cape Kennedy -- Epilogue: The triumph of Apollo 11

"On the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing, acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley takes a fresh look at the American space program, President John F. Kennedy's inspiring challenge, and the race to the moon. Just months after being elected President of the United States, John F. Kennedy made an astonishing announcement to the nation: we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. In this engrossing epic of contemporary history, Douglas Brinkley returns to the 1960s to re-create one of humankind's most exciting and ambitious achievements. American Moonshot brings together the extraordinary political, cultural, and scientific factors that fueled the birth and development of NASA and the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo projects, which catapulted the United States to victory in the space race against the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. Drawing on new primary source material and recent scholarship, Brinkley brings to life this fascinating history as no one has before. American Moonshot is a portrait of the brilliant men and women who made this giant leap possible, the technology that enabled them to propel men beyond Earth's orbit to the moon and return them safely, and the geopolitical tensions that ignited Kennedy's audacious dream. At the center of this story is Kennedy himself. As Brinkley shows, the president's call to action was more than just soaring oratory--Kennedy was intimately involved in the creation of the space program, and he made it a top priority of his New Frontier agenda, fighting the tough political battles to make his vision a reality. Featuring a cast of iconic and sometimes controversial figures, such as rocketeer Wernher von Braun, astronaut John Glenn, and space booster Lyndon Johnson, American Moonshot is a vivid, enthralling chronicle of one of the nation's most thrilling, hopeful, and turbulent eras. This is living history at its finest--but also an homage to scientific ingenuity, engineering genius, human curiosity, and the boundless American spirit."--Jacket