|
For enthusiasts of the entire space push of the 60's, this book is an excellent and thorough review of the space flights and the exceptional individuals who gave their all for their country's moon goals.The author delves deep into the Gemini flights in particular, and provides some very interesting personal and mission info, including detailed accounts of the ongoing Soviet missions being conducted in parallel to the US effort.For those like me that are craving to know the history of the early NASA flights up to Apollo 11, and the individuals that made them successful, I highly recommend this book.
They referred to it as victory disease. The schedule became the god and rockets with problems were shipped to Cape Canaveral to stay on schedule. This brilliant book carries the story up to 1969 with many glimpses past Apollo 11. One wonders why the Soviets had not fixed this problem since it appeared in a less dangerous form in the first two Soviet spacecraft.A while back, I spoke with Marty Votaw about Project Vanguard. I highly recommend this book. NASA tried to do too much too fast and three astronauts died as a result.The story of Soyuz 5's reentry is alone worth the price of the book. Marty commented that a problem with the Vanguard rocket was that it was sometimes treated as a production project rather than a development project.
Even though Gemini was a great success, it took NASA far too long to realize how to correct its EVA problems. The tragic story of Apollo 1 reminds me of the comments of some Japanese about the arrogance that led to their defeat at the Battle of Midway. It was more difficult to fix defects there than at the factory. Its instrument panel remained attached much longer than it was supposed to and almost killed the pilot since the spacecraft was reentering back to front until it finally was detached. He worked on Vanguard 1, the oldest artificial satellite still in orbit, and Minitrack. A slower pace may have allowed NASA time to learn the lessons from the previous EVA in preparing for the next one. Even though you know that the Apollo 11 landing will be successful, French and Burgess make the story exciting as Armstrong looks for a good landing site with his fuel running out.
This book - both volumes - gives a tremendous sense of closeness and immediacy to the manned space programme. It is one of the small handful of books on the space age which I would recommend without reservation to non-specialists as well as those in the know. It's both highly readable and a primary source. It's not easy to be fluent when you're working with memories decades old and comparing them with documentary material, so it's a tremendous achievement.Robert Poole [.].
I sincerly hope that Francis and Colin keep up the good work; maybe they could do a similar effort on underwater exploration. Just when I thought I had read everything about the space program, French and Burgess have done it again will a follow-on effort to their book "Into That Silent Sea." I have no idea when they have the time to create such excellent work, but the latest book begins where the first one ended and includes much information I had never seen before, especially the chapters on the Apollo 1 pad fire and monumental Apollo 8 mission, it alone, a historic accomplishment rivaling the actual Moon landing. Riddled with numerous never-before seen accounts (at least by me), the book is simply bulging with information such as Lola Morrow's dire premonition concerning the Apollo pad fire, and the raw emotional impact experienced by the crew of Apollo 8 upon seeing the first Earthrise observed by man. That would be such a contribution.C. Newport, D.Sc.Author of Lost Spacecraft: The Search for Liberty Bell 7
I own and have read most everything related to the Mercury through Apollo space program and this book shows new information that I hadn't seen in the other books published by many other astronauts and authors. Information was gathered from a myriad of sources and checked against other sources. The book greatly changed my opinion of a few astronauts and paints the entire NASA program in a more accurate light. The passing of time since the event depicted in the book has allowed the authors to see the "big picture" and step away being politically correct and instead be factual and accurate instead.
|
