Reddit reviews How Apollo Flew to the Moon (Springer Praxis Books)

If you don't mean Mars-specific, I loved "How Apollo Flew to the Moon" by David Woods. It's sort of technical, but in a way understandable to the layperson. Runs through a whole mission from launch to splashdown, and how everything worked at each stage.

This is one of the places.

Basically, in short form, the Lunar Module (LM) was actually built from two stages: the Descent Stage and the Ascent Stage.

Each stage had its own independent rocket engine. The Descent Stage rocket engine was used to take the LM out of lunar orbit and land on the moon. The Ascent Stage rocket engine, which, again, was entirely separate from the Descent Stage rocket engine, was used to launch just the Ascent Stage back into lunar orbit.

The Ascent Stage contained the pressurized crew cabin, as well as most of the electronics to actually control the combined Lunar Module.

So, the combination of the Ascent Stage's independent rocket engine, along with the computer and guidance/control systems built into the Ascent Stage allowed it to successfully lift off the moon and rendezvous with the CSM.

If you want more details, there are numerous websites and books that can go into more detail than I possibly could.

One book in particular, "How Apollo Flew to the Moon", goes into considerable detail on the entire Apollo system, including the LM:

http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Springer-Praxis-Books-Exploration/dp/1441971785/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347300598&sr=8-2&keywords=how+apollo+flew+to+the+moon

A bit more googling will get you more details. Also try the Wikipedia pages on Apollo and the LM for more info and links to additional details.

Hope that helps

EDIT:

If you want another website from which to access additional information, try the "Beyond Apollo" website, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/beyondapollo/

Also, look at these Youtube videos, which are actual NASA movies which describe different parts of the Apollo missions:

Lunar Orbit rendezvous, part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuA5xNfYUFo&feature=relmfu


Launch Windows for Apollo Lunar missions (i.e. why did they have to launch at specific times on specific dates?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzthaO29tNY&feature=relmfu

Apollo atmospheric re-entry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-6VQsVoc1I&feature=relmfu

How Apollo Flew to the Moon by David Woods is a great look into the moon landings. The title makes it sound kind of like a kids book, but it's actually a really in-depth look into the technology and engineering behind the Apollo missions.

Thank you :) If you're looking for some rabbit holes, and if it's not gauche to recommend my own work, I've written at length about a few different aspects of the Apollo program:

Going boldly: Behind the scenes at NASA’s hallowed Mission Control Center

Apollo Flight Controller 101: Every console explained

No, a “checklist error” did not almost derail the first moon landing

45 years after Apollo 13: Ars looks at what went wrong and why

How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 “moon rocket” engine back to life

Putting my own writing aside and focusing on real authoritative sources, there's also the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. Between that and its companion site, the Apollo Flight Journal, you have a carefully annotated and curated collection of every transmission, photograph, spoken word, and artifact from the entire Apollo program. Warning: you can lose entire weeks of your life here, especially in the high-rez photo galleries (much of the photography was done on 70mm medium format Hasselblad cameras, and the restored and digitized images are astonishingly beautiful and detailed).

If you prefer your space facts in printed form, I very much recommend Woods' How Apollo Flew to the Moon as an excellent one-stop-shop for understanding everything that happened in the Apollo program.

There are two must-have books that completely and totally capture the human adventure that was Apollo. The first is Chaikin's A Man on the Moon, which focuses on the crews and the landings (and was used as the primary source for the excellent HBO mini, [From the Earth to the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(miniseries), which everybody should watch because it's basically "Band of Brothers in space" and has awesome scenes like this). The second is Cox & Murray's Apollo: Race to the Moon, which focuses on Mission Control and the almost unbelievable amount of work that had to happen on the ground to make Apollo happen.

There are lots of other excellent Apollo books, but those two (Chaikin and Cox & Murray) are the two to buy if you want some absolutely mind-blowing reading.

Sorry to saturate you with links, but Apollo is kind of my thing :D

I very highly recommend Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz for an insider's view of early spaceflight, and I'm currently reading How Apollo Flew to the Moon by W. David Woods, which is an extremely in-depth technical overview of the entire Apollo program written for laymen.

The command module computer was much less powerful than a Game Boy, but then again it was physically integrated into every system on the ship and had the backing of serious computational stuff on the ground. The fascinating How Apollo Flew to the Moon mentions that at its peak the Apollo program was consuming half of the world's integrated circuit output.

Edit: fixed wording.

This is the best book i ever read:

How apollo flew to the moon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1441971785/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Mandatory plug for the definitive book about the Apollo program:
W. David Woods’ “How Apollo Flew to the Moon”.