WE ARE THE APOLLO 11 CREW

Three buddies help one another travel to the moon and back.

Leaning heavily on the bro-ness of the enterprise, Tucker describes how “Mike,” “Neil,” and “Buzz” trained and prepared together, then, while the world watched, went “where no human had been before” (or “no man” as she again misquotes the line later on but using its original sexist language) and returned to wild acclaim: “They even met the pope!” With distressing disregard for accuracy she pulls sound bites from the historic flight’s transcripts but alters them to suit and twice explains that “Mike” was responsible for rescuing his teammates if anything went wrong…when in truth, except for a few limited situations, that would have been impossible. In Radford’s simply drawn cartoons, views of the three White astronauts hanging together, sometimes with hands on arms, are more aspirational than strictly true to life (Michael Collins famously characterized their relationship as “amiable strangers”), and considering contemporary photographs, the veracity of a scene showing a racially and gender diverse Mission Control staff seems doubtful too. But the theme the author hammers home in her trite summation is firmly in the pilot’s seat throughout: “They worked hard and look [sic] after each other, and together they reached for the stars!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A damp squib next to the many Apollo 11 commemorations that soar.