Christopher A. Roosa grew up the eldest son of
Apollo 14
astronaut and command module pilot Stuart A. Roosa. As a child of the space program, Christopher had a ringside seat at the dinner table of one of twenty-four Americans who had either entered lunar orbit or landed on the moon. The first book written by an offspring of an Apollo astronaut to focus on growing up in that era,
Son of Apollo
tells the inside story of the life of his father, a man who had a remarkable career despite always believing his air force career was “off-track,” from his initial application to the service to his removal from the prime crew of
Apollo 13
and his subsequent assignment to
. During the
mission and recovery, Stuart played an integral role in developing the procedures to return the crew to Earth safely. The focus—and the pressure—of the entire Apollo program then shifted to the
mission. If the Apollo program was to continue, Stuart and the
crew would need to get safely to the moon, land, and return. In writing about his father’s career, Christopher Roosa also shows us a familial side of the Apollo experience, from the daily struggles of growing up in the shadow of a father who was necessarily away in training most of the year to the expectations involved in being an astronaut’s son. Roosa’s story shows the Apollo era was the result not only of thousands of scientists and engineers working steadfastly toward achieving an assassinated president’s national goal but also the families who supported them and lived the missions in their own way.