The onerous task of acquiring, sorting, and culling the Apollo documentation at Johnson Space Center had been all but completed when I undertook this history. Chief among those responsible for acquiring these records and putting them in order are James M. Grimwood, historian at JSC from 1962 to 1979, and the late Sally D. Gates, editor and archivist in the JSC History Office until her death in 1980.
By helping me learn to find my way through this morass while I worked on an earlier project, Jim Grimwood and Sally Gates earned my lasting gratitude. Similarly the staff of the Headquarters History Office - Monte D. Wright, director, Frank W. Anderson, Jr., assistant director, Carrie Karegeannes, editor, and Lee D. Saegesser, archivist - provided moral support, critical evaluation, and substantial assistance in my early days. Sylvia D. Fries, who took over as director in 1983, was no less helpful and encouraging on the present project than her predecessor. In the later stages of research and writing I was fortunate to have a sympathetic and helpful technical monitor in William E. Waldrip of the Management Analysis Office at JSC. Not only did he help in working with the NASA bureaucracy; he also took a deep and genuine interest in the organization and content of the book and offered perceptive comments while I was writing it.
Mrs. Sarah C. Arbuckle deserves mention for the hundreds of hours of tedious labor she applied to preparing the computerized index to the Apollo files, which was one of the tasks required by my contract. Although the results of her efforts do not appear in this book, the index was of great help in research in the later stages of its preparation. Researchers who use these files in the future will surely be grateful for her work.
Captain Alan L. Bean, USN (Ret.), artist and former astronaut, generously provided the frontispiece: a reproduction of his picture, "The Hammer and the Feather," which depicts the demonstration performed by David R. Scott on Apollo 15. No photograph of this demonstration was taken on the moon; the only ones available were taken from the television screen on which earth viewers saw it performed. Finally, my thanks go to the participants in Apollo who provided interviews and criticized the manuscript.