SUMMARY: On July 20, 1969 more than 500 million people across the globe watched as the first man in history stepped onto the face of another planet. The triumph of the Apollo 11 mission was a momentous pinacle that followed years of construction, planning, and training, all of which is conveyed in this captivating history that uses official accounts to tell the real, untold story. The background of the space race is retold in full detail, including the role of the Cold War and America's desire to flex its international muscle. The fraught and often bitter relationships between the three men destined to make history-hot-headed Buzz Aldrin, easygoing Michael Collins, and the inscrutable Neil Armstrong-are also addressed, as is the nail-biting moment when, just minutes before Armstrong and Aldrin were about to reach the surface of the moon, their equipment failed. This is an engaging account of a mission that could easily have gone terribly wrong, but instead turned into an American triumph.