NASA is commemorating the this month’s 50 th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing with a full slate of activities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and locations around the country. The lunar mission was a proud moment in American history, one that filled the world with awe as the first images of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon’s surface were beamed back to earth. But the decades leading up to that moment were marked by the political and cultural tensions of World War II and the Cold War. In his new book, Escape from Earth: A Secret History of the Space Rocket , Fraser MacDonald reminds readers about the shadowy aspects of the space race — including lying and spying — that ruined some careers while launching others. MacDonald, a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, joined the Knowledge at Wharton radio show on SiriusXM to talk about his book. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.) An edited transcript of the conversation follows.…