Join the author as he retells the story told to him by his late wife Jeri and her sister Stacey about their dad Gus’s experiences as a Grumman Aerospace engineer assigned along with his brother George to the lunar lander, LEM, program and feel the worldwide exhilaration of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission that landed Americans on the moon a milestone in human history as well as the suspense of the Apollo 13 mishap where only the LEM could bring the astronauts safely back to Earth and Jeri and Stacey asked their dad if it would work and he hugged his daughters and said, it had never been tested for it but yes it would work and Gus and George rolled up their sleeves 24-7 along with all of NASA and Grumman Aerospace one of NASA’s top contractors and went to work to bring the astronauts safely home to Earth. The reporting of this story became a reality when the author was putting together a scrapbook about the moon shot contribution of his late wife’s family where he became inspired watching the Artemis moon launch in 2022 and realizing after years of looking for family tree heroes that right under our noses was a man  who took part in the greatest endeavor in human history landing on the moon.  

UPDATED TO INCLUDE LATEST DETAILS ON ARTEMIS LUNAR ORBIT (2024) and LUNAR LANDING (2025) MISSIONS AND MARS BEYOND. 

“ America should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." — President John F Kennedy, Speech before 1961 joint session of Congress