Until reading Operation Moonglow, I hadn’t realized the extent to which international politics influenced NASA’s manned space programs. I had not known how the American government carefully choreographed the programs’ propaganda value from their very beginnings. In fact, propaganda value was the tail wagging the dog of the Apollo program.

Operation Moonglow is a well-documented, fascinating look at an aspect of the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era that has not been widely understood.

A new perspective on a well-known race. Not too technical as to glaze one's eyes over, but a riveting look at the politics behind that one small step.

Operation Moonglow is an excellent book for learning about the political history of space science. It's primary concern is how advances made in space exploration were viewed around the world. There is of course a large focus on explaining the events between the USSR's space program and the US's space program, but it also focuses on the eastern bloc, Japan, African nations and other Western nations. It details each moment through the Eisenhower administration through the Nixon administration regarding space exploration. It conveys how America used language to convey their power throughout this time to make sure other nations viewed America's system and values as favorable, despite concerns over the Vietnam War and Civil Rights issues. The book does an excellent job of showing the propaganda uses of each milestone reached by America. Well-researched and well told! Please enjoy!

Interesting Angle I Had Never Considered. This book takes a topic that many around the world, and particularly many Americans, know about and presents an angle on it that few openly consider. So many talk about the amazing scientific accomplishments of the Apollo program and NASA at the height of its prowess in its earliest days, but here Muir-Harmony explores the dimension of *how* did so many around the world know of this and *why* did the know of this. Muir-Harmony makes the case reasonably well from a *political* side that from the beginning, NASA's actual chief mission wasn't specifically science-for-the-sake-of-science, but much more closely science-as-covert-imperial-tool. NASA was tasked with achieving remarkable scientific feats, but it was only when the political pressures to be the "peaceful" face of Democracy And Western Ideals came to bear that the funding and urgency were truly put in place to make the "race to the moon" a thing... even as it never really was a thing, since the Soviet tech for such missions was... lacking. Still, an utterly fascinating history that puts well known events in a new light, and that alone makes this truly a worthy read. Very much recommended.

As an Apollo space fan - this was a new perspective on the history of the program! Very little technical information leads it to being a great read for anyone who wants to know how Apollo looked “to the world” during those days.