David Woods

David Woods is not a rocket scientist but he turned his interest in the Apollo programme into a passion by producing the Apollo Flight Journal, a companion to the renowned Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. His involvement with the online journals led to him writing 'How Apollo Flew to the Moon' (HAFTTM), a lay-man's guide to the techniques and procedures of the Apollo flights to the Moon. HAFTTM, now in its second edition, proved to be a hit with Apollo fans, providing the technical nitty-gritty that most books in the genre shy away from. More recently, he has co-authored two books in the Haynes Space series of 'Owners' Workshop Manuals'. The 'Lunar Rover' manual, written with Chris Riley and Phil Dolling, nods to Haynes' long history of producing car maintenance manuals by delving into the subsystems of the LRV and its history. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first manned Gemini flight, the 'Gemini' manual, written with prolific space author David Harland, looks closely at this often forgotten spacecraft and describes its systems and how it laid the groundwork for Apollo over ten astonishing missions that were flown over the course of only 20 months.