A Space about Books about Space

THIS BLOG HAS MOVED

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:57:00 +0000

As of 10 December 2009, this blog can now be found on Wordpress - see here.

This page will no longer be updated. If you want to see new content, use the link above. And don't forget to change your feeds too.

Reference Guide to the International Space Station, Gary Kitmacher

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:06:00 +0000

With a title like Reference Guide to the International Space Station, this book doesn't really need a back-cover blurb. It has one, however; and it says, "This book is designed to provide a broad overview of the International Space Station's complex configuration, design, and component systems. As well, the sophisticated procedures required in the Station's construction and operation are presented". But this is not strictly accurate. The book's overview is actually quite detailed - it gives, for example, the physical dimensions, and other related facts and figures, about every module of the ISS. It is also copiously illustrated (see sample pages here and here), with lots of wonderful photographs.

In fact, if I have one criticism of this book, it's that it needs updating. It was originally published in 2006, so it's already three years out of date. Given that the ISS was originally planned to be de-orbited in 2010 - although that's likely to be extended to 2016 - it's certainly time for a new edition of Reference Guide to the International Space Station.

Although the copy reviewed here was published by Apogee, Reference Guide to the International Space Station is actually a reprint of a NASA document - available in parts as PDFs on the NASA web site here. All the same, it's an excellent resource and belongs in every self-respecting enthusiast's collection.

Reference Guide to the International Space Station, edited by Gary Kitmacher (2006, Apogee Books, ISBN 978-1-894959-34-6, 98pp + appendix)

The Year in Space

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:37:00 +0000

... is a useful, fun and informative site, which each week details important space-related events and facts of the past and present. You can either visit the site here, or sign up for a free weekly email newsletter. Each email contains "a photo-essay, daily Moon phases, sky events, space history, holidays, and more". And there's a hard-copy desk calender too.

Recommended.

The Old Man of the Sea of Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:44:00 +0000

I had intended to publish a short story on this blog as part of my 40th anniversary celebrations of Apollo 11, but with one thing and another I never actually finished the story. Recently, however, I needed to come up with a flash fiction piece (i.e., under 1,000 words) as part of my writing group's contribution to a local literary festival. And it occurred to me that the story I'd planned to publish here would be perfect. But first I had to finish it. And then chop it down to 1,000 words. Which I did. And I think it came out quite well.

So here it is:

The Old Man of the Sea of Dreams

“Radar lights are out.”

“That’s a Verb 57?”

Capcom confirms, “You’re go for a Verb 57.”

LMP Gerald P Carr punches it in on the DSKY. The computer will now accept data from the landing radar.

“Descent rate 70 feet per second… passing through 36 thousand… pitch 72…”

Carr reads out the LM’s altitude and descent rate, while Commander Stuart Roosa, USAF, flies the spacecraft. Moments later, Houston signs off as the LM crosses the lunar terminator —

Apollo 20, the first mission to visit the dark side of the Moon.

The LM approaches the Mare Ingenii, a lava-flooded crater. It looks like a real sea. Except it’s grey, a flat featureless grey like an under-exposed black and white photograph. A collapsed rim resembles two fjords. Carr can imagine a fishing port at the shore, a cluster of monochrome houses, with a monochrome jetty and little monochrome dories. Carr is USMC, he knows boats.

“Okay at 20,000,” Carr says. “Computer and PNGS on the button. 1:20 to pitchover.”

He feeds flight data to Roosa. They pitch over and begin to descend vertically.

“Ready for touchdown.”

“20 feet… 10 feet… contact.”

Silence.

Not even a vibration through his boots. Carr feels a moment of vertigo, the moonscape visible through the window tips one way then the other. He blows out noisily; it’s enough to break the spell.

He says, “Engine stop, engine arm, command override off, PNGS on auto.”

Roosa says the magic words, but Houston can’t hear them:

“Centaurus has landed.”

Both astronauts want to go out onto the lunar surface, but they’re not scheduled for EVA for another three hours. First is a rest period, but they’re too keyed-up to sleep.

“What they used to call this?” Carr asks.

“Mare Desiderii.”

“Sea of…” His Latin isn’t up to it.

“Sea of Dreams. But it’s not a mare. Except this bit, so they called it Sea of Cleverness. Ironic, huh?”

“I guess.” Carr is not big on irony. He’s a marine.

“What’s that?”

Roosa bounces round to face Carr. “What’s what?”

“I saw something flash.” Carr points north-east. The rim of Thomson there is broken, forming inlets into the “sea” of the crater’s floor.

“A flash? Like a reflection off a mineral?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Worth checking out.” It’s some 12 kilometres away, so about an hour on the LRV.

The CSM is overhead, so Roosa tells CMP Paul Weitz their plan. He can inform Houston when he orbits back to the near-side.

“Be careful,” says Weitz.

Roosa acknowledges. He turns to look at the LM — bright silver, with its golden skirt. He got to come here, he marvels. Three days on the dark side. He made a first, he’s going down in the history books.

Like Neil Armstrong.

The floor of Thomson could have been made for the LRV, the going is so smooth. Roosa pushes the T-bar forward, and the speedometer needle creeps up to 15 kph.

“Boy,” says Carr, “we’re really motoring here.”

“Yeah. Who needs a Corvette?”

Carr directs Roosa to where he saw the flash. Roosa nudges the T-bar and the LRV arcs to the right.

Ahead, something sparkles. Sunlight spilling over the horizon makes the lunar surface a place of black shadows and grey twilight. But there’s something bright hiding in a fold in the tumbled-down rim.

From a kilometre away, it’s hard to tell what it is, though vision is sharp in the vacuum. Carr squints and makes out a suggestion of…

… something regular?

“You think it might be a Luna? One of those Russian probes?”

No, it’s too big. Carr has seen photos of the Luna probes: they looked like boilers on legs, like some robot from a 1950s B-movie.

The LRV slows to a stop. Roosa sits and stares at the object in the shadows. It’s a spacecraft. It lies crumpled against the slope, broken-backed, its engine bell towards them.

They disembark, and Roosa approaches the crashed spacecraft slowly. Is it alien? He’s heard of UFOs, of lights buzzing planes; but he doesn’t subscribe.

He can see the upper half of the craft. It looks familiar.

“Holy shit,” he says. “You’re not gonna believe this.”

It’s obvious now. Roosa can see exactly what it is:

A Mercury capsule.

Just like the ones flown by Al, John, Gus, the Original Seven. He can see the words “United States” on its side.

“Jesus,” says Carr. “How the hell did that get here?”

Roosa moves up the slope. The capsule looks undamaged. He’s close enough to see the hatch… and the curve of a helmet within.

“Stay back,” he warns.

There’s no movement, but it pays to be cautious. His breath is louder than the PLSS fans. The hatch is cracked open a few inches. He hauls it up.

Inside, belted into the single seat, sits a figure in a silver pressure suit. His head is slumped forward, hiding his face.

“No way is Houston going to believe this.”

The dead astronaut has the Star and Stripes on his shoulder. It’s impossible.

Roosa reaches in and shifts the body. Now he can see the nametag:

“Kincheloe.”

The only Kincheloe he knows of died back in 1958, killed at Edwards when his F-104 augered in. Could it be the same man? Maybe they faked his crash, maybe they sent him here instead.

“Jesus,” says Carr. “I found a flag stuck on a pole here.”

“Stars and Stripes?” asks Roosa. He’s still staring at the dead astronaut.

“Yeah.”

Roosa steps back from the capsule. He looks down at his feet, and sees his bootprints. They’ll last a million years. He sees more bootprints, not his. Kincheloe survived the crash.

“Know what this is?” Roosa remembers now. “I heard about it back at Edwards. Project Pilgrim. A one-way shot to the Moon.”

They actually went and did it. They sent a man to the Moon on a one-way ticket. He planted a flag here, then he died.

“Neil will be pissed,” Roosa says.

(all images NASA)

Winged Rocketry, James C Sparks

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:26:00 +0000

The cover-flap blurb for Winged Rocketry states, "this fascinating book retraces the history of rocket planes fro the first crude version fired by coolies in ancient China, on to the secret German space bombers and fighters of World War II and to the great barrier-breaking rocket planes of the United States". And so it does. But not in any great depth.

If anything, Winged Rocketry reads mostly as an introduction to its subject, rather than a deep study of it. Its emphasis is on readability - a not unexpected emphasis, given that the author was for many years the Public Affairs Officer for the Mercury and Gemini programmes in the Office of Information of the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. While readability can never be a bad thing, it often results in a tendency to dramatise, which often undermines authority.

Take, for example, Sparks' description of Chuck Yeager's historic flight in the X-1 on 14 October 1947. Sparks tells us that:

"[Yeager] had awakened in the middle of many a night, in the throes of fantastic nightmares, most of which were associated with violent explosions, or the fear of being sealed inside the fiery bomb in a last plunge to earth." (p 109)

Unless Sparks is telepathic, there's no way he could know this (this book predates Yeager's autobiography by almost twenty years).

Despite such flourishes, Winged Rocketry is mostly a solid read about rocket planes. As the blurb indicates, it opens with apocryphal tales of rocket-powered flying experiments in ancient China - all of which, obviously, failed. It then follows the German experiments between the wars and during World War II, which led to the Messerschmidt Me-163 Komet and the Natter - both lethal aircraft to fly. There is a chapter devoted to each. Next is the proposed manned variants of the V-2 and the Sänger "Antipodal Bomber".

After Germany, the only experiments in rocket-powered flight of any consequence took place in the US - the X-1 programme, and the D-558 Skyrocket, both of which are covered in the book; as are the Bell X-2 and North American X-15.

Of course, research with rocket-powered aircraft did take place in other countries, most notably the UK. The Saunders Roe SR.53 was a mixed jet- and rocket-powered interceptor, which first flew in 1957, and would likely have led to the SR.177 entering service with the RAF. Duncan Sandys' infamous 1957 Defence White Paper, however, put paid to that, as it did the TSR-2 and a variety of other imaginative aviation projects. None of this is mentioned in Winged Rocketry.

It's only towards the end of Winged Rocketry that the book becomes interesting, and then for the wrong reasons. At the time it was written, there was an expectation that some of the lines of study by NASA and the armed forces would lead to real aircraft and spacecraft. Although the X-20 Dyna Soar had been cancelled in 1963, Sparks describes the future of lifting body research - i.e., their use as spacecraft - as if it were certain to happen, even going so far as to write, "The trend in futuristic space vehicles is rather firmly established at present" (p 158). Of course, no manned lifting body ever made it into orbit. And these days, they are better known from the opening credit sequence of the television programme The Six Million Dollar Man.

The final chapter of Winged Rocketry describes some of the proposed designs for space planes, both military and civil. None ever got further than the drawing-board, although in 1968 it was perhaps expected they would do so. Sparks certainly believed so. It's a shame he was wrong.

Winged Rocketry, Major James C Sparks (retd) (1968 Dodd, Mead, No ISBN, 180pp + index)

One Small Step, PB Kerr

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:27:00 +0000

Given the shadow the Apollo Programme casts over the history of the twentieth century, it's surprising there isn't more fiction set in and about it. There's certainly plenty about space travel, but that's science fiction, inasmuch as it supposes technologies and sciences which do not exist, such as faster-than-light drives. But they're the subject of my other blog here.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut, an I very much doubt I was alone in that. It was never a likely prospect - I'm not American, for one thing. In PB Kerr's One Small Step, thirteen-year-old Scott MacLeod wants to be an astronaut when he grows up, but he gets to be one while he's still a kid. PB Kerr is better known as Philip Kerr, the author of the excellent Bernie Gunther novels, as well as a number of others. As PB Kerr, he writes YA fiction - this novel, and the Children of the Lamp series.

One Small Step opens with Scott's parents separated, his mother in Florida, and his father a serving USAF officer in Texas. After an incident at school, Scott goes to live with his father. And every Sunday, Scott's father gives his son flying lessons at the nearby Air Force base. On a flight in a T-37 trainer jet, a bird strike shatters the canopy and knocks out Scott's father. So he lands the plane on his own.

News of this feat reaches NASA, and Dr Wernher von Braun comes to visit Scott and his father. Apparently, NASA had been so scared after the Apollo 1 fire that the Apollo missions might fail, or that the astronauts might be killed, that they were running a shadow programme, called Caliban, using chimpanzees. They were all set to send a Caliban mission to the Moon ahead of Apollo 11, but their chimp commander had suffered a mental breakdown. Von Braun wants Scott to command the mission instead.

Which, of course, he does. After four months of training, Scott is blasted into space with two chimpanzees in a smaller version of the Apollo spacecraft. The mission plans for the two apes to land on the Moon, but not EVA, while Scott remains in lunar orbit. Naturally, he disobeys, pilots the LM down himself, and goes out onto the surface. Where something strange happens to him and his chimpanzee LMP. They then return to Earth and are quarantined, but Scott can convince no one of what he experienced on the Moon.

Certainly NASA used apes early in its space programme, but it's a stretch too far to imagine an entire secret project shadowing Apollo. As a central premise, it's a little difficult to swallow. and that sort of spoils the book. Scott is an engaging narrator, and the story is very readable. Kerr is perhaps better on his ape characters than he is on Apollo details - the afterword, for example, refers to the "Apollo 7 fire". The only Apollo astronaut to feature is Pete Conrad (see my review of his biography here), and he feels mostly true to character.

But. Sending apes to the Moon. And having to use a thirteen-year-old boy to command the mission. It's too incredible. The Caliban 11 mission is launched using a Saturn V, which means there was no requirement for ape-sized Apollo spacecraft, which means in turn there was no need for a boy rather than an adult. Not to mention the level of automation required for a mission "manned" by chimpanzees. The real Apollo astronauts had thousands of tasks during their missions, and they were already quite heavily automated. I can swallow a young boy being given flying lessons, and landing a damaged jet trainer because the pilot in unconscious, but the rest....

Which doesn't mean One Small Step isn't a fun read. And I suppose it provides a very good YA introduction to Apollo. Not everyone, after all, is going to want to wade through heavy non-fiction books on the subject (which may explain why the terrible Moon Shot - see here - is so popular). I found the details in One Small Step mostly correct, the book wears its research lightly, and the period is evoked well. I already knew Kerr was a good writer, and in that regard this book doesn't disappoint. Perhaps the whole separated parents subplot is a bit of a cliché, but at least it makes for a happy ending. I'd happily pass One Small Step on to a reader of the appropriate age. I'm fairly sure they would enjoy it.

One Small Step, PB Kerr (2008, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-1-84738-300-6, 305pp + Author's Note)

First on the Moon, Armstrong, Aldrin & Collins

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0000

Forty years ago, the first person from this planet set foot on Earth's satellite, the Moon. He was Neil Alden Armstrong, and with Buzz Aldrin he formed the crew of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle (Michael Collins remained in orbit about the Moon aboard Command Module Columbia). They were followed by a further six missions, one of which - Apollo 13 - did not make it to the lunar surface. On 14th December 1972, Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt climbed back into the Apollo 17 LM Challenger and shortly afterwards it departed. No one has visited the Moon since.

First on the Moon by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins is the definitive account of the first mission to land on the Moon. It was published immediately after the event, and was written with the assistance of Gene Farmer and Dora Jane 'Dodie' Hamblin, two of the Life journalists who had exclusive access to the astronauts and their families.

You would expect the most authoritative book on the Apollo 11 lunar landing to be one written by the three men who actually made the trip. But would that necessarily make it a good book? Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins are, after all, astronauts and not writers - Farmer and Hamblin's presence on the title page notwithstanding. So it came as a pleasant surprise to discover that First on the Moon is very good indeed. Not only because it tells the story of the mission with authority, but because it is readable, well-structured, and a fascinating read from start to finish.

The book is written in several voices - there are transcripts of the mission, some parts of which are annotated; there are passages by the three astronauts, typically in answer to questions; there are sections describing events at the homes of the astronauts as their families watch the mission on television; and there are passages more typical of a non-fiction record of Apollo 11, not all of which feature the Apollo 11 crew or their families. Together these build a mosaic, rich in detail, of what happened during the flight, for both those aboard and those who remained behind.

Having now read First Man: The Life of Neil A Armstrong (see here), Buzz Aldrin's Return to Earth (see here), and Michael Collins' Carrying the Fire (see here), I feel I have some idea of the character of the three astronauts - and First on the Moon does nothing to dispel the impression of them as people I had gained from those three books. Armstrong still talks like a flight manual, Aldrin is as blunt as he is in his autobiography, and Collins provides the light relief and culture. Those three books, however, do not cover Apollo 11 - surely the defining moment of their lives - in as much detail as First on the Moon.

First on the Moon also scores highly in another area. Since Farmer and Hamblin were embedded with the Apollo families, they witnessed the reactions of the wives and children to the mission. The families are certainly not ignored in First on the Moon, and they are quoted almost as extensively as the astronauts themselves. It makes for a rounded view of Apollo 11 - the three astronauts in space in their CSM, while their spouses and children watched and waited at home.

The book finishes with an excellent epilogue by Arthur C Clarke, entitled 'Beyond Apollo'. It's typical Clarkeian futurism, and with the benefit of hindsight we can see that his optimism in many areas was unfounded. After Apollo 17, no one ever left Earth orbit again - so there are no moonbases, there have been no missions to Mars. Which is a shame: I think I would have liked the late twentieth century Clarke depicts. Those familiar with Clarke's novels and stories may spot references to his fiction in some of the points he makes.

Of course, since First on the Moon was written by the Apollo 11 crew, with the help of Life journalists, it's not going to be "warts and all". It puts a positive spin on the whole endeavour, and no one comes out of it looking bad. That's not necessarily a bad thing; after all, Apollo 11 should be celebrated. When talking to Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins aboard USS Hornet after their return, President Nixon said, "This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation". Hyperbole aside, putting two men on the Moon was an astonishing achievement; and even more astonishing when you consider the time at which it happened, the 1960s. Most of the technology required was in its infancy then. Now, we have the science, technology and engineering to repeat the achievement, and it would not be nearly so difficult.

Even if some nation does put an astronaut on the Moon in the next twenty years, and several have declared an intent to do so, it will never be as impressive an accomplishment as Apollo 11.

There are many books available on Apollo 11 - and yet more being published this year to celebrate the its fortieth anniversary. First on the Moon not only has the advantage of being written by the crew of Apollo 11, but also having been written shortly afterwards. It's an excellent study of the mission. Highly recommended.

First on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, with Gene Farmer and Dora Jane Hamblin (1970, Little, Brown, No ISBN , 433pp + epilogue, acknowledgment and notes)

First Man, James Hansen

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0000

There are two approaches to writing a biography. In the first, the subject is treated as if he or she were the protagonist of a novel - their life is dramatised. A good example of this type would be Rocketman by Nancy Conrad and Howard Klausner (see here). The second approach is far more academic, and treats its subject as just that, the subject of the book. To me, what the first type gains in readability it loses in authority. First Man: The Life of Neil A Armstrong by James R Hansen also proves the point, albeit from the opposite direction.

Neil Alden Armstrong is, of course, the first man to set foot on the Moon. On 20th July 1969, he climbed down from the hatch of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle, stepped onto the lunar regolith and said, "that's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind".

(Although Armstrong actually said "one small step for man", and repeated studies have deemed it unlikely he ever uttered the implied "a", he has said he certainly intended to speak the article. Besides, the phrase is nonsense without it, and given its historical importance I feel it's best to quote it as it should have been said.)

First Man is authoritative. Hansen was chosen by Armstrong as his biographer in 2002, and the book quotes the astronaut extensively. It was also uses a great many quotes from Michael Collins' Carrying the Fire (see here) and Buzz Aldrin's Return to Earth (see here)... which does give a somewhat odd effect: for example, Armstrong is commenting on Apollo 11 after more than thirty years, but his crewmates' commentaries are from no more than a couple of years after the lunar landing. This also gives Armstrong the benefit of three decades of thought on the matter. But while he has been chiefly characterised as an introspective, thoughtful man, there isn't actually that much evidence of this in the book.

Which is perhaps an unfair characterisation of Armstrong. He is notoriously taciturn, and when he does speak it's often difficult to comprehend his meaning. At the press conference for the New Nine, he was asked why he had applied to become an astronaut. He said, "It was the general challenge of the unknowns of the program, and the general alignment of this part of it with our national goals". Only when he is actually describing events, or discussing an engineering topic, does he make sense.

But then Armstrong saw himself first and foremost as an engineer. He was a test pilot for NASA prior to becoming an astronaut, but all those worked with him during that part of his career stressed his engineering expertise over his flying abilities - in fact, in Carrying the Fire, Collins remarks he had been told Armstrong was "one of the weaker stick-and-rudder men". And yet, but for Armstrong's flying abilities Apollo 11 might very well have come a cropper. When LM Eagle undocked from CSM Columbia, the docking tunnel still contained air. This gave Eagle sufficient push such that the onboard PNGS no longer accurately showed the LM's position. So when the craft reached the final section of its powered descent, Armstrong and Aldrin found themselves heading for an area that was unsuitable for landing. So Armstrong manually flew the LM further and they landed with only 25 seconds of fuel remaining.

That Armstrong could do this, and do it successfully, is chiefly a result of his monomaniacal approach to his training to the mission. The best training device for the lunar landing was the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle, which was notoriously dangerous - so much so that Director of Flight Operations Chris Kraft wanted to eliminate it. In fact, Armstrong nearly met his death in the LLTV, but managed to eject in time. That afternoon, he was back behind his desk, filling in a report.

First Man is an excellent resource on the whats and whens of Armstrong's career - from his birth and childhood, through his service in Korea, his time at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Centre at Edwards AFB, Gemini 8 and Apollo 11, right up to the time of the book's writing. Hansen takes care to debunk several myths which have grown up about the astronaut, chiefly stories whose details have become inflated over the years, but he never really seems to come to grips with the man. Since Armstrong speaks for himself - either in NASA transcripts, or in interviews or correspondence with Hansen - it's difficult to grasp his character. The fact that he often talks using the tortured English of an engineering report doesn't help. It makes for an interesting comparison with Collins, whose character comes across plainly in his Carrying the Fire; and Buzz Aldrin, who is not as open in Return to Earth but is certainly far less inscrutable than Armstrong.

Collins described the Apollo 11 crew as "amiable strangers", and as commander Armstrong bears most responsibility for that situation. He created the character of the team. It's tempting to suggest that everyone in his life - bar immediate family, of course - was no more than an amiable stranger to him. There are occasions when the mask slips - the crew joking about in Columbia during the trip back to Earth, when discussing the tragedies he has experienced - but even then Armstrong permits only a carefully-controlled slippage.

First Man is an important book because its subject is important. Neil Armstrong was the first man on the Moon. He is also something of an enigma, and while First Man fails to solve that puzzle it comes closer to a solution than any other book. It is also an excellent historical document because it is a well-researched, comprehensive and authoritative treatment of its subject. The writing is perhaps not great, running from the serviceable to the occasionally bizarre: "To achieve jettison, the astronauts had to depressurize their cabin once again..." (p530). But it does its job.

First Man is an important book, although not a great biography. But it definitely belongs in the collection of any self-respecting space enthusiast.

First Man: The Life of Neil A Armstrong, James R Hansen (2005, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-0-7432-5631-5, 648 pp + acknowledgments, notes, bibliography and index)

Return to Earth, Buzz Aldrin

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Last month, Buzz Aldrin, with Snoop Dogg, Quincy Jones, Talib Kweli, and Soulja Boy, recorded a hiphop single, 'Rocket Experience'. All the proceeds from it will go to the ShareSpace Foundation, a non-profit organisation founded by Aldrin. A hiphop song is perhaps an odd way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, but Aldrin has been promoting space exploration since retiring from the US Air Force in 1972. He is the only one of the three Apollo 11 crew who currently engages with the public on the topic.

However, Aldrin hasn't always been such a vocal and tireless proponent of space exploration. After Apollo 11, he returned to the US Air Force as commandant of the Experimental Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB in California, but stayed there only a couple of years before retiring from the military. His first book, Return to Earth, covers this portion of his life.

Return to Earth opens with the Apollo 11 splashdown. Aldrin then goes on to describe the quarantine which followed - in case the astronauts had brought any "Moon germs" back to Earth - and then the subsequent world publicity tour. Aldrin holds little back. He finds the Norwegians "not at all enthusiastic", is surprised the British don't present the astronauts with a decoration or award, and declares the Shah of Iran's wife the most thoughtful of the state leaders' spouses they meet on their travels. There's surprisingly little culture-clash, perhaps because Aldrin served in Germany with the US Air Force for three years from 1956. But there are still one or two telling incidents - such as the Apollo 11 astronauts' dinner at 10 Downing Street, at which "the recently deposed Labour leader landed in his cups and gave a speech ripping his country's present administration" (p 71). That would be Harold Wilson attacking Edward Heath's government. As a Brit, this strikes me as entirely unremarkable - but not, perhaps to a US military man who must never "embarrass the Chief", a phrase which appears several times in Rocketman, the biography of Pete Conrad (see here).

Return to Earth then leaps back to Aldrin's childhood and his early career. Like many astronauts, he had early exposure to aircraft - nothing notable now, but it certainly was in the late 1930s and early 1940s. While his father arranged for Aldrin to attend Annapolis, the US Navy academy, Aldrin chose instead to go to West Point and then into the US Air Force. He fought in Korea, and downed two enemy MiG-15s. He then served in a variety of places, including Germany, before attending MIT to earn a doctorate in astronautics. His doctoral thesis was titled Line-of-sight guidance techniques for manned orbital rendezvous, a subject he deliberately chose with an eye to becoming an astronaut. He'd already applied once, asking that the requirement for attending test pilot school be waived in his case. The request was refused.

In fact, at NASA Aldrin was sometimes known as "Dr Rendezvous" because of the work he'd done on the subject. He joined NASA in the third group of astronauts in 1963, after they'd dropped the test pilot school requirement. Initially, he was assigned as backup to Gemini 10. This meant - following the usual rotation schedule of "miss two missions, fly on the the third" - he would not actually fly until Gemini 13. But there were only twelve missions planned. But then the crew of Gemini 9, Charlie Bassett and Elliot See, died in a plane crash, and so Gemini 10 became Gemini 9A... which in turn meant Aldrin would fly on Gemini 12.

After the Gemini programme finished, Aldrin was assigned as backup on Apollo 9, which would have put him in the prime crew for Apollo 12. Then it was learnt that the Lunar Module would not be ready for the Apollo 8 flight, so that became Apollo 9, putting Aldrin as backup on what was now Apollo 8 and so prime on Apollo 11. At that point, Apollo 11 "seemed a much too optimistic candidate for the first lunar landing" (p 198). Besides, Aldrin admits several times he would sooner fly on a later mission, one which spent longer on the Moon and performed more science.

The rest, as they say, is history. On 16th July 1969, Apollo 11 launched from launch-pad 39A, and on 20th July Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon in the Lunar Module Eagle. Aldrin devotes less than eight pages to the time spent on the Moon, and while he has become known for the phrase "magnificent desolation" as a description of its surface, he does fail to evoke what it was actually like to be actually there.

That is, perhaps, the major failing of Return to Earth. It is very matter-of-fact. Aldrin is honest; he pulls no punches. But writing his style is an odd mix of frankness and self-aggrandisement. He gets the details across but rarely succeeds in presenting them memorably to the reader. While his preference for facts over opinions is laudable, it does make for a dry read. This doesn't mean he entirely avoids giving his own opinion; far from it. While at West Point, he charged another cadet with cheating, but there was not enough evidence for a court-martial. The cheating student, however, was honour-bound to confess. He failed to do so and "is now a very high ranking officer in the armed services" (p 115). Aldrin admits to feeling bitter, to having his confidence in the system severely shaken, but also realises he was guilty of "rather naïve idealism".

Aldrin's idealism and naivety is a common theme throughout Return to Earth. His lack of political nous at NASA nearly saw him bumped from a flight. After joining the Astronaut Corps and being sent on public engagements, he was misquoted by the press on many occasions, and admits to being very angry over it. Even after he left NASA, he tried to set up a youth congress, only for it to fail. But this did work in his favour on occasion - after rejoining the Air Force, he was assigned as commandant of the Experimental Test Pilot School at Edwards, where he set about changing the school's culture to make it more open and egalitarian. He was successful.

Return to Earth is, unsurprisingly, an unflinchingly honest self-portrait. Aldrin admits to an extra-marital affair and the precariousness of his marriage; he details the mental illness he suffered which persuaded him to retire from the Air Force; and, while the word "alcoholism" is never actually used in the book, there's certainly a great deal of drinking mentioned in its pages. The book is very informative and an excellent account of Aldrin's early life and career. It also gives an indication of his character - its honesty alone suggests he had not, at the time of writing, lost his "rather naïve idealism". But that's no bad thing.

Return to Earth is perhaps not the most rivetting read about Apollo 11 that has been published, but it certainly belongs in the collection any self-respecting space enthusiast.

Return to Earth, Colonel Edwin E "Buzz" Aldrin, with Wayne Warga (1973, Random House, ISBN 0-394-48832-6, 338p)

Carrying the Fire, Michael Collins

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:00:00 +0000

I've read enough about Apollo 11 - and not just in my preparations for this Apollo40 celebration - to be aware of how its crew are normally characterised. Neil Armstrong is the strong, silent type, and has shunned all publicity since the Apollo 11 round-the-world tour. Buzz Aldrin is a fierce proponent of space exploration, extremely clever, but also very frank and blunt. And Michael Collins is the erudite one, the wine connoisseur, who was not as po-faced or serious as Armstrong or Aldrin.

These, of course, are the public perceptions of the three astronauts. And the best way to a better understanding of them is to read their biographies or autobiographies. Beginning with Michael Collins, whose Carrying the Fire is generally reckoned to be one of the best books of its type.

I've been disappointed by highly-recommended books on space before - see here - but happily I can confirm that both Michael Collins and his Carrying the Fire live up to their reputations. He is an engaging and readable narrator, surprisingly honest, and considerably more self-effacing than the other astronauts. (This last may also have been true of Pete Conrad, but his biography, Rocketman, was written after his death and doesn't really give a true indication of the man - see here.)

Like Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins owes his place in the history books to misfortune - in this case, his own. He had been initially assigned to the crew of Apollo 8, but a cervical disc herniation requiring surgery resulted in him being dropped from flight status. After he had recovered, he was assigned to Apollo 11. If it had not been for his back problem, it's likely Apollo 8 would have been his one and only Apollo flight - he was keen to retire from NASA after successful completion.

Which is a shame. Collins was command module pilot for Apollo 11, and remained in orbit about the Moon in Command Module Columbia. Of all the Apollo astronauts, Collins would probably have best described in prose what it was like to actually walk on the Moon. If he had not left NASA after Apollo 11, the normal rotation schedule would probably have seen him commanding Apollo 17... and so landing on the lunar surface. And then he would have been able to write about it.

For instance, take Collins' description of his first sight of the Moon from close quarters:

"The moon I have known all my life, that two-dimensional, small yellow disk in the sky, has gone away somewhere, to be replaced by the most awesome sphere I have ever seen. To begin with, it is huge, completely filling our window. Second, it is three-dimensional. The belly of it bulges out towards us in such a pronounced fashion that I almost feel I can reach out and touch it, while its surface obviously recedes towards the edges. It is between us and the sun, creating the most splendid lighting conditions imaginable." (p 387)

It is definitely the writing which lifts Carrying the Fire above other books of its type. In its approach to its topic, it is little different. It opens with a very brief précis of Collins' early life, mentioning - of course - his first aeroplane ride. It covers his entry into the US Air Force and his career before joining NASA. He then discusses the other astronauts, and takes time to briefly characterise them. Of his fellow Apollo 11 astronauts, he says:

"Neil Armstrong Makes decisions slowly and well. As Borman gulps decisions, Armstrong savors them - rolling them around on his tongue like a fine wine and swallowing at the very last moment ... Neil is a classy guy, and I can't offhand think of a better choice to be the first man on the moon.

Buzz Aldrin Heavy, man, heavy. Would make a champion chess player; always thinks several moves ahead. If you don't understand what Buzz is talking about today, you will tomorrow or the next day. Fame has not worn well on Buzz. I think he resents not being first on the moon more than he appreciates being second." (p 60)

To be fair, Carrying the Fire was published in 1974, at which point Aldrin was indeed failing to cope... but Aldrin did subsequently go on to "wear fame" the best of the three, and today is a tireless and vocal proponent of space exploration. And, of course, Aldrin's own words on the second man on the Moon "controversy" are entirely different in his own book, Return to Earth (see this blog tomorrow). Later in Carrying the Fire, during the mission itself, slightly different characters emerge for the two; and Collins' analysis on the trip back to Earth results in him referring to them as "amiable strangers" - an often-quoted phrase.

Collins provides a great deal of detail about his time in NASA. As all the astronauts were encouraged to specialise in an area related to the various missions, Collins chose space suits and Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA). He spent a lot of time testing the space suits for both the Gemini and Apollo programmes, and describes extremely well the experience of wearing them. In fact, Collins provides an impressive amount of detail about everything he did as an astronaut - most especially, of course, his two missions, Gemini 10 and and Apollo 11. His is the most descriptive and evocative accounts of missions from either programme I have read to date. And they are not only highly informative but a pleasure to read.

Also noteworthy is Collins' ability to explain the arcana of astronautics in an easy-to-understand fashion. Carrying the Fire by no means talks down to its reader, but neither is it as dense with "technobabble" as, for instance, Tom Stafford's autobiography, We Have Capture (see here). Collins writes, "NASA-ese is no worse than Air Force-ese or State Department-ese, I suppose each has its place, although none of them seems a desirable substitute for English" (p 76), and goes on to give examples of each. Carrying the Fire is, happily, written entirely in English.

Collins is also a nicely self-deprecating writer, not only unafraid to include his emotional responses in his account but also to comment on his own abilities and position (or lack thereof) in the Astronaut Corps. He is not always complementary about his colleagues, although he clearly likes and admires them. Neither does he agree that every decision made regarding Gemini and Apollo by NASA was the right one, or that the technology used was always ideal or best-suited to the job.

Above all, Carrying the Fire is an involving read. On finishing it, you're left with an excellent impression of what it was like to have been on the Gemini 10 and Apollo 11 missions, rather being left with a knowledge of the life and career of Michael Collins, astronaut. Compared to other astronaut autobiographies I have read, this is unusual. I would also say it was a good thing. Interestingly, this is also one of the few autobiographies which was not ghost-written, or written with the assistance of a ghost writer. As Collins himself says, "No matter how good the ghost, I am convinced that a book loses realism when an interpreter stands between the storyteller and his audience" (p xvi).

Highly recommended. If you want to read one autobiography by an astronaut, I can confirm that this is definitely one of the best.

(Note: unlike the other books I have written about on this blog, my edition of Carrying the Fire is not a first edition. The book was first published in 1974.)

Carrying the Fire, Michael Collins (2001, Cooper Square Press, ISBN 978-0-8154-1028-7, 478 pp + appendix)

Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual, Christopher Riley & Phil Dolling

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:00:00 +0000

When I saw the cover to this Apollo 11 Haynes manual, I expected it to contain exploded diagrams and cutaways of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, "including Saturn V, CM-107, SM-107, LM-5". The subtitle, "an insight into the hardware from the first manned mission to land on the Moon", only further suggested this.

So imagine my disappointment when the book proved to contain nothing like this.

However, as I read the book my opinion changed. No, Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual does not contain the detailed exploded diagrams typical of Haynes car manuals; but it is a readable and detailed introduction to Apollo 11, the people involved and the hardware used. In eight copiously-illustrated chapters, the two authors cover everything from "the dawn of Apollo" to "misconceptions and conspiracy theories".

The book opens with an introduction to the space race, from Tsiolkovsky and Goddard through von Braun and Gagarin to Projects Mercury and Gemini, and Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. The chapter finishes with a section on the crew of Apollo 11, including the back-up crew and flight directors.

Chapter 1 covers the development and technical specifications of the Saturn family of launch vehicles. Chapter 2 does the same with the Apollo Command and Service Modules. The Apollo Guidance Computer and guidance, navigation and control systems of the CSM and LM are described in chapter 3. The next chapter details the Lunar Module, followed by a chapter on space suits. The final two chapters cover "Communicating from the Moon" and "Beyond Apollo 11 - the J-class missions". Everything is explained clearly and concisely, and well illustrated.

Much of the information in Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual can be found in other, more detailed, books on individual topics covered by this book. And, in fact, many of the diagrams are taken from NASA literature of the time - from such as the Apollo Spacecraft News Reference and Apollo Training. The photographs, however, are from a variety of sources.

As an introduction to Apollo 11, Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual strikes exactly the right balance between overview and detail. For example, in the chapter on the Lunar Module is a section titled "Landing on the Moon", which gives a breakdown of the three phases - braking, approach, and terminal descent - and the computer programmes used by the LM during those phases. It's difficult not to learn something new about Apollo 11 reading this book, at least not without reading an entire library on the subject.

Both Riley and Dolling are BBC producers who specialise in space-related programmes. Riley, in fact, was a producer on In The Shadow Of The Moon and Space Odyssey, and Dolling has executive produced programmes such as Space and James May's 20th Century.

Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual is a very good introduction to its subject. If you want to buy a book about Apollo 11, then you could do a great deal worse than this one.

Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual, Dr Christopher Riley and Phil Dolling (2009, Haynes Publishing, ISBN 978-1-84425-683-9, 185pp + appendices)

40 Years Ago - Apollo 11

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:00:00 +0000

In five days, it will be the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. On July 20 1969, the first man from this planet stepped onto the surface of the Moon. That man was Neil Armstrong. He was followed twenty minutes later by Buzz Aldrin. In orbit about the Moon, in Apollo 11's CSM, waited Michael Collins.

NASA's 40th anniversary logo

Over the next five days I will be posting reviews of books about Apollo 11. The schedule looks like this:

16 July: Apollo 11 Owners' Workshop Manual, Dr Christopher Riley & Phil Dolling
17 July: Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys, Michael Collins
18 July: Return to Earth, Buzz Aldrin
19 July: First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong, James Hansen
20 July: First on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins

Also on 20 July, around noon GMT, I will be posting something special.

However, to - ahem - launch this blog's own celebration of the anniversary, here is a bibliography of books about the Apollo programme, by year of publication. There are far too many books on the subject to list them all, so I have had to pick and choose. Some of the books I own, some of them I have even reviewed here (these will be linked). You might also want to check this post for books published this year on Apollo 11 and the Moon Landing.

A Select Apollo Bibliography
Caidin, Martin. By Apollo to the Moon (1963)
Cooper, Henry SF. Apollo on the Moon (1969)
Ryan, Peter. The Invasion of the Moon 1969 (1969)
Gurney, Gene. Americans to the Moon: The Story of Project Apollo (1970)
Mailer, Norman. Of a Fire on the Moon (1970)
Collins, Michael. Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut's Journeys (1974)
Cortright, Edgar. NASA SP–350 Apollo Expeditions to the Moon (1975)
Hurt III, Harry. For All Mankind (1988)
NASA SP–4205 Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969 (1989)
Murray, Charles & Catherine Bly Cox. Apollo: The Race to the Moon (1989)
Shepard, Alan & Deke Slayton. Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon (1994) Review here.
Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts (1995)
Hall, Eldon C. Journey to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Guidance Computer (1997) Review here.
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 8: The NASA Mission Reports (1998)
Allday, Jonathan. Apollo in Perspective: Spaceflight Then and Now (1999)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 7: The NASA Mission Reports (1999)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 9: The NASA Mission Reports (1999)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 10: The NASA Mission Reports (1999)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 11: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 1 (1999)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 11: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 2 (1999)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 12 : The Nasa Mission Reports (1999)
Zimmerman, Robert: Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8 (1999)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 13: The NASA Mission Reports (2000)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 14: The NASA Mission Reports (2000)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 15: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 1 (2001)
Kelly, Thomas J: Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module (Smithsonian History of Aviation & Spaceflight) (2001)
Lindsay, Hamish. Tracking Apollo to the Moon (2001)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 11: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 3 (2002)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 16: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 1 (2002)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 17: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 1 (2002)
Reynolds, David West. Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon (2002)
Sullivan, Scott. Virtual Apollo (2002) Review here.
Sullivan, Scott. Virtual LM (2002)
Schyffert, Bea Usmaa. The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins (2003)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo 12: The NASA Mission Reports Vol 2 (2004)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo Spacecraft News Reference (NAA Command/Service Manual) (2005) Review here.
Godwin, Robert. Apollo Spacecraft News Reference (Lunar Module) (2005)
Smith, Andrew. Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth (2005)
De Groot, Gerard. Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest (2006)
Harland, David M. The First Men on the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 (2006)
French, Francis & Colin Burgess. In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969 (2007)
Godwin, Robert. The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook (2007) Review here.
Godwin, Robert. Apollo Advanced Lunar Exploration Planning (2007)
Godwin, Robert. Apollo Training (2007) Review here.
Heiken, Grant & Eric Jones. On the Moon: The Apollo Journals (2007)
Woods, David. How Apollo Flew to the Moon (2007)
Harland, David M. Exploring the Moon: The Apollo Expeditions (2008)
Mindell, David A. Digital Apollo (2008)

Celebrating Apollo40

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:56:00 +0000

In just under a month it will be the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon, when Neil Armstrong became the first human being to step foot on Earth's satellite. NASA will be celebrating the event and have all ready put together a web site. No doubt there will be other celebrations scattered across the Internet, and even in Real Life too - such as Buzz Aldrin's rap, 'Rocket Experience', here.

And I'll be having my own little celebration on this blog too. No hiphop, happily. Just a bunch of reviews of books about Apollo 11 and the three astronauts who crewed it - Neil Alden Armstrong, Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr and Michael Collins.

But until then, I thought it might prove interesting to pimp some of the books being published for Apollo40. Some of them I might buy - and so will subsequently be reviewed here at some point - but not all of them.

The Apollo 11 Moon Landing: A Photographic Retrospective, by Dennis R Jenkins & Jorge R Frank (Speciality Press)

Moonfire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11, by Norman Mailer (Taschen)

Voices from the Moon, by Andrew Chaikin (Viking Press)

Moon 3-D, by Jim Bell (Sterling)

Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts, by Robert Jacobs (Harry N Abrams)

One Giant Leap: Apollo 11 Forty Years on, by Piers Bizony (Aurum Press)

Moonshot: The Inside Story of Mankind's Greatest Adventure, by Dan Parry (Ebury Press)

Apollo 11 Owner's Workshop Manual, by Christopher Riley & Phil Dolling (Haynes)

Missions to the Moon, by Rod Pyle (Sterling)

Hornet Plus Three: The Story of the Apollo 11 Recovery, by Bob Fish (Beagle Bay Books)

T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, by Jim Ottaviani, Zander Cannon & Kevin Cannon (Aladdin)

The Soaring Achievements of John C Houbolt, by Robert E Sterling (CreateSpace)

Saturn V / Apollo Lunar Orbit Rendezvous, edited by Robert Godwin (Apogee Books)

Lunar Module Familiarization Guide, edited by Robert Godwin (Apogee Books)

I know very little about any of the books above. Moonfire: The Epic Journey of Apollo 11 looks like it might be very good, but unfortunately it's priced at £599.99! T-Minus: The Race to the Moon is a graphic novel and looks really interesting. Speciality Press, er, specialise in aviation books - such as the very good Magnesium Overcast on the B-36, Hypersonic on the X-15, Valkyrie on the XB-70 and the Warbird Tech series, among others. Both Chaikin and Bizony are excellent writers on space-related matters. The book on Houbolt is self-published via Amazon's CreateSpace, but the subject is relevant so I included it.

The Pilgrim Project, Hank Searls

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:00:00 +0000

I don't normally review fiction associated with the Space Race on this blog, chiefly because there's little fiction available which seems appropriate. There have been novels written which are based on the subject, or based on the technology of the various NASA and Soviet space programmes - and, in fact, it was one such novel which partly rekindled my interest in the Space Race. That novel was Ascent by Jed Mercurio, and I reviewed it on my other blog here. The other book which inspired me to start this blog was Andrew Smith's Moondust.

But. Fiction set in and around and about the Space Race. There's Space by James Michener, of course. I read it many years ago, and I may well reread it to review here. And there's Donald Wollheim's Mike Mars series, some of which I own. There are also assorted novels by Jeff Sutton, Barry Malzberg, Stephen Baxter, Homer Hickam, Martin Caidin, and others.

And there's The Pilgrim Project by Hank Searls.

The Pilgrim Project is a fictional account of the first landing on the Moon. But this is not an Apollo mission. According to the novel's foreword, at a symposium in New York in 1962, members of the Institute of Aerospace Sciences proposed sending an astronaut on a one-way trip to the Moon. He would have to survive there for about a year, while NASA figured out how to rescue him. The plan was never taken seriously, and work moved on apace on the Apollo programme.

Searls did well get his novel out so quickly. The Pilgrim Project is copyrighted 1964, so he must have started writing it shortly after the symposium mentioned above. Unfortunately, future events have made an alternate history of the story. For example, the novel opens with the crew of Apollo 3 in orbit. The year isn't given, but I'd guess it was roughly contemporaneous with the book's publication, so the mid-1960s. Sadly, the Apollo 1 fire, in which Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White lost their lives, delayed Apollo, and the first manned flight wasn't until Apollo 7 on 11 October 1968.

Some of the actual details Searls gives of the Apollo programme and spacecraft are also slightly off. Admittedly, it seems a bit silly to complain about the accuracy of Searls' depiction of the space programme, since the book was written while Apollo was still being planned. In fact, the writing of The Pilgrim Project predates the first manned Gemini mission, Gemini 3, on 23 March 1965.

But then The Pilgrim Project is pretty much a potboiler. The prose is direct and mostly inelegant. The characters are typical for the type of novel: the men are hard-talking, manly astronauts, and the women are all beautiful and needy. Some historical figures are named, such as Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley; while others are referred to only by their position - the President and the Vice-President, for example.

One of the latter is "the colonel", the volunteer astronaut for the one-way Moon shot. He's described as a Mercury astronaut, and Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Gordy Cooper and Wally Schirra are all named in the narrative. Which would make "the colonel" Scott Carpenter, who was actually a US Navy aviator. Another recurring character in The Pilgrim Project is "the Navy commander", who is quite clearly based on Alan "the icy commander" Shepard (see my review here of Neal Thompson's biography of Shepard, Light This Candle).

The hero of The Pilgrim Project, however, is Steve Lawrence, a civilian test pilot. The only civilian test pilot of the first post-Mercury group of astronauts, the New Nine, was Neil Armstrong. Lawrence is mentioned as having served with distinction in Korea, which Armstrong did indeed do.

In the novel, the Soviets take the first steps to a lunar mission of their own, sending up a Vostok to their unnamed space platform. Scared they might be beaten to the Moon, the Americans dust off Project Pilgrim, and "the colonel" begins training. The Pilgrim Project uses a Mercury capsule, launched into orbit on a Saturn 1B, and with a modified Polaris missile rocket for Lunar Orbit Insertion and an unnamed liquid-propellant throttleable rocket for landing. Prior to launch, a shelter and supplies, Project Chuck Wagon, would be sent to the Moon.

However, when the Russians declare that their astronaut is a civilian geologist, the President refuses to let "the colonel" fly the Pilgrim rocket. Steve Lawrence is asked to volunteer, and does so. If Lawrence is indeed based on Armstrong, then Searls was remarkably prescient. Or very lucky.

The story of The Pilgrim Project chiefly describes the run-up to the launch: the politicking which results in the project being given the green light, and Lawrence's training. He does not actually launch until the penultimate chapter. Much is made of Lawrence's home situation - his wife is a recovering alcoholic - and his conflicted motivations for accepting the job.

The Pilgrim Project is by no means great literature, but it's certainly worth reading by those interested in the Space Race. A film was made of the book in 1968, Countdown, starring James Caan as Lee Stegler (a renamed Steve Lawrence).

The Pilgrim Project, Hank Searls (1966, Mayflower-Dell, No ISBN, 221pp)

21st Century Apollo

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:38:00 +0000

Nature News is tweeting the Apollo 11 mission as it were happening today at ApolloPlus40. Now there's a conflation of 1960s and 21st Century technologies....

But the question is: when Project Constellation finally makes it to the Moon in a decade or so, will we be following the mission step-by-step in real-time? And how?

How to Build Your Own Spaceship, Piers Bizony

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:48:00 +0000

The title of How to Build Your Own Spaceship is not entirely accurate. Nor indeed is its sub-title, "the science of personal space travel". Bizony's book actually provides an introduction to the space industry.

Over seven very readable chapters, Bizony gives a brief history of space exploration, and outlines the various opportunities available in the space industry - either working directly for a government organisation such as NASA or ESA; working for a company manufacturing components for a government organisation; or for a NewSpace entrepreneur like Scaled Composites, T/Space, or SpaceX, among others.

How to Build Your Own Spaceship is a "pop-sci" book, and as such is chiefly aimed at readers who are interested in, but mostly uninformed on, the subject of space travel and getting into orbit. And it does this very well. It's not only informative, but also an entertaining read. Bizony peppers his "advice" (the book is addressed directly to the reader) with anecdotes, and facts and figures on the topic. I hadn't known, for example, that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was so-named because it was created around the work of Jack Parsons, inventor of the Jet-Assisted Take-Off (JATO) rockets. Which were called "jet" because it was felt the word "rocket" had negative connotations for the military.

It is difficult at times to figure who is the book's intended readership. Bizony is a British writer, Portobello Books is a British publisher. Yet all monetary figures are given in US dollars, and some of the cultural references are distinctly American - mention of a"government goon knocking on your door with a SWAT team and an arrest warrant" (p 25), for example. In other sections, the book describes the US laws and regulations governing space from the point of view of a non-US company or entrepreneur.

If I have any complaints about How to Build Your Own Spaceship, it is its lack of diagrams. A few simple pictorial representations of the concepts being described would, I think, have much improved the book. Nonetheless, How to Build Your Own Spaceship is an excellent introduction to the business of putting people into orbit, and bringing them back.

How to Build Your Own Spaceship, Piers Bizony (2008, Portobello Books, ISBN 978-1-84627-125-0, 241pp + acknowledgments and selected bibliography)

Apollo 10

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Tue, 19 May 2009 08:01:00 +0000

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 10. On 18 May 1969, Thomas Stafford (cmdr), John Young (CMP) and Gene Cernan (LMP) launched from the Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39B. Young and Cernan would later return to the Moon - Young as commander of Apollo 16 and Cernan as commander of Apollo 17.

Apollo 10 was a dry-run for the Apollo 11 lunar landing. The Apollo spacecraft made it all the way to the Moon without a hitch. The Lunar Module Snoopy flew to within 15.6 km of the lunar surface, before returning to lunar orbit and docking with the CSM Charlie Brown.

Here's a photo from the NASA web site, showing the Apollo 10 Command/Service Module in lunar orbit, as seen from the Lunar module after separation.

For more information:

Apollo 10: The NASA Mission Reports (2000, Apogee Books, ISBN 1-896522-68-8)

We Have Capture, Tom Stafford (2002, Smithsonian Institute Press, ISBN 1-58834-070-8) Reviewed here.

The Last Man on the Moon, Gene Cernan (1999, St Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-19906-6)

Spaceships, Robert A Goehlich

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Sun, 17 May 2009 14:30:00 +0000

This is one of those books which does exactly what it says on the cover. It is, as its subtitle informs us, "A Reference Guide to the International Reusable Launch Vehicle Concepts from 1944 to Present".

Over 102 pages, Goehlich gives data on 300 sub-orbital and orbital Reusable Launch Vehicle concepts. Each entry contains a photo or sketch, and information on the vehicle concept's developer, type, number of stages, payload, launch mass, propulsion system, status (at time of publication), and a link to online information. They are also graded with up to five stars, "based on the estimated probability for technical, economic and political feasibility", as judged by the RLV concept project team at Keio University in Yokohama, Japan. All entries are organised by country.

Spaceships is now four years old and so already out of date. An online reference web site would have been more useful, and could easily be kept current. The data on each concept vehicle in the book is also a little sketchy, and a web site would have provided much more room for greater detail.

An interesting guide of limited usefulness.

Spaceships, Robert A Goehlich (2005, Apogee Books, ISBN 978-1-894959-50-6, 102 pp + index)

Rocketman, Nancy Conrad

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:51:00 +0000

Rocketman is subtitled "Pete Conrad's Incredible Ride to the Moon and Beyond" and purports to be a biography of Gemini and Apollo astronaut Charles 'Peter' Conrad Jr. Except it doesn't actually read like a biography. It reads more like a novel, in which Pete Conrad happens to be the main character. As a result, it offers little insight into its subject.

Perhaps this is because the book was co-written by Howard Klausner, who is better known as the screenwriter for the film Space Cowboys. While that certainly means he's familiar with the material, writing a screenplay and writing a biography are not the same. A biography, for example, does not need a story. It doesn't require a three-act structure. And the character-arc is a function of the subject's life, and not something that is imposed by the biographer.

All of which explains in part why I found Rocketman such a dissatisfying book. It was certainly a fast and easy read, but its style gave it no authority. It was based upon notes left by Conrad on his death in 1999, and from which he intended to write an autobiography himself, but for all that it doesn't seem to really capture what it was like to be a Gemini and Apollo astronaut.

For whatever reason, Nancy Conrad and Klausner chose to frame Rocketman using Conrad's record-breaking around the world Learjet flight in 1996. Which in turn gives the chapters on Conrad's childhood, his career at NASA, and his days afterwards at McDonnell Douglas, the feel of reminiscences. It distances his achievements. In fact, one of the few sections of the book which gives a real feel for the man is a direct quote taken from, I assume, his notes, regarding his Gemini 5 mission. He and Gordo Cooper set a new space endurance record of eight days in, as Conrad described it, "a garbage can". In the quote in Rocketman, he mentions that his knees dried up and began to hurt. It's details such as this which make the man and his mission come alive for the reader. It's a shame there aren't more in the book.

In places, Rocketman reads as though Klausner were trying to tell his own history of the space race, a story in which Conrad was an important, but not major, player. The focus of the book occasionally shifts to the world stage and describes events in which Conrad played no part - because, it feels like, Klausner has something to say about the representation of the USA in geopolitics. There's a lot of rah-rah "our country, 'tis for thee" nonsense, which might fit the macho character of the test pilots and astronauts, but seems faintly risible to a non-American reader in the twenty-first century. Admittedly, the space race took place because of politics, and Apollo was indeed an astonishing achievement. But an Apollo astronaut's biography is not the right place to give the US's somewhat tarnished international reputation a buff and polish.

Rocketman hits the highlights of Conrad's career - Gemini 5, Gemini 11, Apollo 12, Skylab and the McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper. The book ends with a dramatised description of the motorcycle accident which caused his death in 1999. In many respects, Conrad was a typical astronaut. Like many of them he spent much of his youth hanging around an airfield and learned to fly in his teens. He was described as one of the best pilots among the astronauts - as most of them have also been described. Clearly he was as driven and determined as the other astronauts, although he was perhaps atypically approachable. He liked a good joke and reading between the lines his sense of humour unlike, Alan Shepard, another astronaut known for his jokes, was not cruel.

Reading Rocketman, the over-riding impression is of a man who was liked by everyone who knew him. While it seems a little unlikely - the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts were, after all, highly-driven, highly-ambitious military jocks - Conrad definitely appeared to be a more likable man than many of his colleagues.

But I'd have sooner Rocketman left an impression of Conrad's career and achievements, rather than simply the fact that he was a nice guy for an astronaut. Disappointing.

Rocketman: Pete Conrad's Incredible Ride to the Moon and Beyond, Nancy Conrad with Howard A Klausner (2005, New American Library, ISBN 0-451-21509-5, 275pp + appendices and index)

Moon Shot, Alan Shepard & Deke Slayton

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:53:00 +0000

I admit I had high hopes of this book. Someone had told me it was their favourite book on the Apollo programme, and the identities of the two authors promised much. Perhaps my expectations were too high...

Moon Shot covers the entire Space Race, from Sputnik to the Apollo Soyuz Test Project. It is an accessible read, written by two astronauts, Alan B Shepard and Donald K Slayton, who were important to the American effort. With the help of journalists Jay Barbree and Howard Benedict.

But. This is non-fiction, it is documented history... so I fail to understand how the authors can know what the Soviet Ambassador to the US was actually thinking when he heard of the Apollo 1 fire. Throughout the book, the authors imagine themselves in the heads of various people. Such "fictionalisation" of real people and events may make Moon Shot easier to read, but it also undermines its authority. How can it be an accurate depiction of events if it makes things up?

But then the prose-style itself also undermines the book's authority. It reads like a bad Kevin J Anderson novel:

Flying backwards with their faces parallel to the silent and airless surface below, they glanced at the glowing numbers of their timers. They were minutes from the moment they would ignite the engine beneath their feet and descend to the moon's surface. Time seemed to stretch endlessly.

They are about to land on the Moon - we know it is "airless". And if it is airless, it must by definition be "silent" - sound, after all, cannot travel in a vacuum. And, "Time seemed to stretch endlessly"...? What does that mean? Moon Shot is rife with these meaningless sentences, which attempt to evoke mood but actually add nothing of verifiable substance to the story being told. It is possible to write readable gripping non-fiction without resorting to such cheap tricks.

This penny-dreadful style spoils what could have been an interesting history of Apollo and its precursors. Sadly, Moon Shot also offers very little to the documented history of the Space Race. There is very little technical detail, and remarkably few anecdotes which have not been used in other works on the same subject. It is not wholly devoid of insight, however, and some good points are made regarding various aspects of the US space programme. Of course, given its authors, it's no surprise that Moon Shot privileges the astronauts and the role they played.

If anything, in fact, the book also has a tendency to whitewash its subjects. When Gordo Cooper's Mercury flight is almost given to Alan Shepard, there is no mention of Shepard's behind-the-scenes politicking to make this happen. Some of the astronauts come out of Moon Shot considerably better than others - it's easy to spot who Shepard and Slayton liked and admired, and who they had very little time for. Their own role in almost every aspect of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programmes is also inflated somewhat. As are the personal qualities of the astronauts. True enough, they were clever men. But they weren't geniuses. If they had been they would have been Nobel Prize-winning scientists, not fighter pilots.

Throughout Moon Shot, Shepard and Slayton refer to themselves in the third person - unlike Stafford in his We Have Capture - which makes you wonder how much they contributed to the book. From the prose-style alone, I suspect Moon Shot was actually written by Barbree and Benedict. Shepard and Slayton likely added a participant's dimension to what would have been a history written by observers. They may well also have provided much of the information - although both journalists have reported on space matters for decades - as well as approving the final text. And, of course, their names on the cover allowed the book to be subtitled "The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon".

A disappointing read. There are better-written and more informative books available on the subject. Tom Stafford's We Have Capture is a much better "inside story", and Neal Thompson's Light This Candle provides an excellent study of Alan Shepard and his career.

Moon Shot, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton (1994, Turner Publishing, ISBN 1-878685-54-6, 365pp + index)

A New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:27:00 +0000

It was my intention when I started this blog to read a book each month about the space race, and then post a review of it to this blog. Unfortunately, I've not managed to keep to that schedule, and there have been a couple of months when nothing has appeared here. Apologies. I'm hoping I'll be better organised this year, and manage to post more regularly.

We Have Capture, Tom Stafford

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:19:00 +0000

Thomas Patten Stafford, a USAF pilot and flight test instructor, joined NASA in the second group of astronauts in 1962. He flew two Gemini missions, and commanded Apollo 10 and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). He is also one of the three people to have travelled at the fastest speed ever attained by a manned vehicle - during the return from the Moon, Apollo 10's trajectory resulted in a speed of 24,791 mph.

We Have Capture is Stafford's autobiography.

If a biographer has to struggle to capture his subject's personality and character, you would imagine an autobiographer would have a much easier job of it. And it's true that We Have Capture reveals Tom Stafford's nature much better than, say, One Giant Leap did of Neil Armstrong's. Of course, there's an all too natural tendency to be less than truthful when writing about yourself - unless you particularly enjoy embarrassing yourself in public. But for a Gemini and Apollo astronaut, one of only 24 men to ever fly to the Moon, there's more than enough that's worthy of admiration in Stafford's life to fill a book without including the "warts and all".

That's not to say that We Have Capture gives a reader a real idea of what he was like as a person. It's written in a personable, affable style, and Stafford is as honest about his mistakes as he is eager to recount his told-you-so moments. But it's the achievements more than the man which are the real focus of the book. However, where We Have Capture really scores over other books about astronauts I have read is that Stafford gives a very real feel for what it was like to be there, to be in the Gemini 6-A capsule, or the Apollo 10 CSM.

Obviously, Stafford was there. But it's more than that. His descriptions include many small details - which, perhaps, a conscientious biographer might have picked up - and it is those which make his prose seem more real. For example, when describing the deaths of cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov in Soyuz 11, Stafford explains:

Seeing that the front hatch was still sealed, the crew realized that the leak was probably coming from that ventilation valve, which was located under Dobrovolsky's seat. They tried to crank it shut - there was a backup master valve, but this unit, like a basic steam valve, was mounted over the crew's shoulders and took nineteen turns to close.

It's that "nineteen turns". Only someone who had spent time in a Soyuz capsule, and knew it well - as Stafford had while training for ASTP - could write something like that. It's such details which lift Stafford's book above others I've read on the subject.

Having said that, Stafford does have a tendency to drop into the language he used while at NASA. Some of it went straight over my head; such as this, while arguing with Apollo Spacecraft Program Office manager, Joe Shea:

"Inertial reference is fine for certain phases of the mission," I said, "starting in posigrade attitude with inertial attitude, When you're 180 degrees around the world, that's retrograde. It makes a hell of a difference how you apply that thrust with respect to the rotating radius vector."

After ASTP Stafford felt he was no longer needed at NASA, and returned to the Air Force. He was given command of Edwards AFB. Eighteen months later, he retired from the military, and went into consulting. He remained involved, however, with space exploration - in fact, if his take on events is to be believed, he was responsible for creating the F-117, B-2, getting the International Space Station "off the ground", saving the Space Shuttle from being cancelled after the Challenger disaster, and repairing the Hubble Space Telescope. According to We Have Capture, Stafford was probably NASA's most important astronaut - or rather contributed the most to manned spaceflight - even more so than the likes of Neil Armstrong or Al Shepard. Yet, as commander of Apollo 10 and ASTP, he's little more than a footnote to Project Apollo in the history books. Perhaps in the future his contribution will be better known by the general public. Certainly, there should be more books about him. Nonetheless, this one is recommended and belongs in the collection of anyone interested in manned space exploration.

We Have Capture, Tom Stafford (2002, Smithsonian Institute Press, ISBN 1-58834-070-8, 296pp + notes and index)

Update Coming Soon

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:02:00 +0000

I've been a bit too busy the last couple of months to read and review a book from my collection. While that situation hasn't really changed, I am currently reading We Have Capture by Tom Stafford. So there will be a new review going up soon.

Journey to the Moon, Eldon C Hall

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:53:00 +0000

There are a large number of books about the Apollo programme. There are also many books about specific aspects of the Apollo programme - the missions, the people, the hardware, the science... Eldon C Hall's Journey to the Moon, however, focuses on one very narrow element of NASA's project to put a man on the Moon: the development of the Apollo Guidance Computer.

The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) did exactly what its name suggestions - it controlled the navigation functions of the Apollo spacecraft. There was one in the Command Module, and another in the Lunar Module. Designed and built in the early 1960s, it was one of the first production computers to use integrated circuits. It was developed by MIT Instrument Laboratory, but built by Raytheon.

By modern standards, the AGC was crude and not at all powerful. This hardly surprising - computing was still its late infancy, and integrated circuits were so new they were both unreliable and expensive. Happily, advances in IC manufacture during the AGC's development period improved both these factors. Reliability, of course, was paramount - astronauts could not afford for the AGC to crash or malfunction while en route to the Moon.

As someone who works in information technology, I was expecting Journey to the Moon to be a technical read, perhaps similar to books such as CJ Date's Database in Depth or Andrew Tanenbaum's Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. Computing, however, was a very different field during the 1960s - Journey to the Moon is more electronics engineering than it is computing.

Hall is an engineer by trade, and it shows in his prose. The writing in Journey to the Moon is at best plain, and at worst a bizarre engineering-speak which considers subjects or verbs superfluous. Despite this, the book is still readable - although I will confess that much of the maths was over my head.

Much of Journey to the Moon describes the project management aspects of the AGC's development. The manufacture and specification of its various modules is also described in depth. I found this less interesting than I would have done of, say, its operating system. More information on programming the AGC might well have been given in the appendices, but I'll never know - while the text referred to appendices, the copy of the book I purchased had none.

If you're interested specifically in the AGC, then you'll probably find Journey to the Moon a useful addition to your library. Otherwise, it's probably too arcane for most enthusiasts of Apollo. For those interested in further reading, here are a couple of useful links: Virtual AGC Page, MIT's site on the AGC, AGC schematics.

Journey to the Moon, Eldon C Hall (1996, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, ISBN 1-56347-185-X, 226pp)

Apollo EECOM: Journey of a Lifetime, Sy Liebergot

noreply@blogger.com (Ian Sales) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 09:55:00 +0000

EECOM means Electrical, Environmental and Communication systems. The flight controller filling this role operates from the Mission Operations Control Room during manned space flights. Sy Liebergot was EECOM for Apollos 8 - 15, and EGIL (Electrical, General Instrumentation and Life support) during the Skylab missions. This book is his autobiography.

Given that Apollo EECOM was published by Apogee Books, most readers of it are going to be interested first and foremost in Liebergot's career with NASA. The book, however, opens with his childhood - and it was not a pleasant one. His father was a small-time crook, and Liebergot and his siblings spent time in foster homes. After a stint in the Army Weather Observers Corps, Liebergot went to work in the aerospace industry in California, before transferring across to NASA.

Liebergot is unflinchingly honest in Apollo EECOM - about himself, his life, his family, and his colleagues. Many of the latter come across as unpleasant individuals, although to be fair Liebergot admits he was no different. Interestingly - and this ties in with comments I made below in my review of Harrison H Schmitt's Return to the Moon - Liebergot mentions one or two people whose careers which were blighted by flight director Chris Kraft. And simply because those people had disagreed with Kraft. Much as been made of Apollo-era NASA's management systems, and how they were crucial in getting a man on the Moon. And yet, from all that I've read, they still appear to follow the "charismatic leader" model. Kraft is a case in point. His authority was absolute. NASA was not a meritocracy - it was based upon the perception of excellence by those in authority. And that perception - as seems clear from Apollo EECOM - was often based upon personality.

Liebergot himself came close to suffering the same fate but, as he appears to be fond of saying (and writes repeatedly throughout Apollo EECOM), he "dodged the bullet".

Another telling incident which demonstrates this occurred during Apollo 10 when a fellow member of Mission Operations Control threatened to violence against Liebergot because he had not been "personally briefed". Yes, different times then- but no matter how competent someone is, that sort of behaviour should be seen as unacceptable.

Apollo EECOM is very good on technical detail and personalities, and there's no doubt Liebergot followed an interesting career. He not only discusses Apollo 13 in depth, but also mentions his peripheral involvement in Ron Howard's film. Unfortunately, Liebergot's writing style leaves much to be desired. While his tone is honest and friendly, the book often seems to be written more like a memo or report - especially its strange tendency throughout to punctuate sections with italicised concluding sentences. For example,

"... What a beautiful sight it was to see the Command Module on the main chutes and then splashing down in view of the recovery carrier. We were all so relieved and so very proud.

For us flight controllers, the mission was a success."

There are no great insights in Apollo EECOM, but despite the clumsy writing it's an entertaining read. Liebergot's role in the Apollo programme means those chapters detailing his career as flight controller are the most interesting to a reader such as myself. He not only describes his job in great detail (and most especially during Apollo 13), but also relates many interesting anecdotes from his time at NASA. There's also a CD-ROM with the book, containing audio of the EECOM loop during Apollos 13 and 15, a Quicktime panorama of Mission Control, and 55-minute video presentation by Liebergot about the Apollo 13 explosion.

Liebergot's honesty - a book like Apollo EECOM could all too easy have become self-aggrandising - outweighs, I think, any deficiencies in his prose. You could do a lot worse if you were interested in reading about life in Mission Control during Apollo.

Apollo EECOM:Journey of a Lifetime, Sy Liebergot, with David M Harland (2003, Apogee Books, ISBN 1-896522-96-3, 199pp + appendices and CD-ROM)

Note: Liebergot has a webpage at http://www.apolloeecom.com/