"Human memory is flawed and has to be backed up with recorded facts. I've made a living off the archives."

Chaikin said he laments the closure of the NASA History Office, which contained many records he used for his research. He would like to see NASA reopen it, and added he could not have written A Man on the Moon without the vast collection of documents held by the space agency from the Apollo program.

"All of these documents were available because Apollo, like the rest of the civil space program, is an open program," he said. "It wasnt done behind closed doors."

Chaikin listed some of the documents he used to research the Apollo program and moon landings before even approaching the astronauts for interviews, including transcripts of the Apollo command-module voice recorders, post-mission debriefings and internal memos written by participants.

"The process of telling a story is assembled from parts and pieces from all over the place," he said. "Any page from my book contains information from interviews, transcripts, training manuals and other sources."

Digging into the archives when he wrote A Man on the Moon even helped Chaikin solve an historical mystery. The famous Earthrise photo shot from Apollo 8 has been typically credited to mission commander Frank Borman, even though William Anders was assigned as photographer. Borman even claims to have taken the famed shot of the Earth peering over the moon. However, when Chaikin listened to the voice-recorder tapes from the mission, he confirmed that Anders indeed took the photo.