New book by Minnesota author goes behind the scenes of the Apollo program

Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, when American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to step foot on the moon.

While Armstrong and fellow moonwalker Buzz Aldrin are the faces of that historic mission, countless people behind the scenes worked to get them to the moon and back safely. The stories of some 60 engineers and scientists from the Apollo program are chronicled in a new book by Minnesota-based science journalist Nancy Atkinson. It’s called “Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions.”

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talked with Atkinson about the book, and what she discovered in the course of her research.