I have read a few books on the US space program. This one was very different from the others. The others tended to concentrate on the human aspects---on the experiences of the astronauts. They were very good books (particularly Riding Rockets, which includes a very sober account of the bureaucracy of the Shuttle program), but this book offered a very different view: that of the technical project management required to get those few people to the moon.
Indeed, sections of this book should be used in project management classes. There are excellent examples of how to decrease overall time spans (the "all-up" test of the first Saturn V) projects and how to integrate external contractors into a project while maintaining communication to home base on critical issues (by assigning a local representative).
I enjoyed most, though, the various engineering solutions to problems encountered during design build and test. I learned about explosive forming and the fundamental operation of the engines with the "new" cryogenic fuels. Unfortunately, due to my protracted reading of this book, my memory is best for the last 200 or so pages versus the first part.
It is a book I will have to go back to at some point. Despite the dense fact-based nature of the topic, Bilstein does a reasonable job giving a story arc to each of the elements of the engines and stages. He is particularly good at including elements of the engineering story where things didn't go as planned and an interesting solution resulted.
It was a tough read, but worth it.
7/10
