Re: Books on space program and moon landing

On Jun 12, 3:50 pm, rob.langender...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Jun 12, 1:50 pm, OM <om@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:





rob.langender...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Hi.
I enjoyed Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon tremendously.  I am also
in the process of reading This New Ocean and am enjoying it a great
deal.  I also own a number of others.  Anyway, I was just wondering if
anyone had any opinions on what books they liked (or did not like)
about the space program.  Which ones were your favorites and why?

...In no particular order:

* Tom Kelly's "Moon Lander". I'm currently re-reading this, and it's
still as riveting as the first time I read it. It also holds a special
place for me as it reveals that my family had a bit of a direct input
of sorts into the LM design and proposal phase; when Grumman bought
the Gulfgate Gardens apartment complex for office space in 1962, my
father was managing the Thornhill's Cafeteria across 610 from the
complex. He was in charge of the big Grumman-NASA luncheon that Kely
notes in the book, and my pop remembers Tom Kelly eating at the
cafeteria on several occasions during the fall of 1962. They had a
couple of conversations about several things - mostly about life in
Houston for someone not used to its unique brand of humidity, where to
get your car serviced by a mechanic who won't cut your fan belts just
to make a few extra bucks, etc - but one that stood out was Kelly's
lament that he wouldn't be home for Thanksgiving with his family due
to contract negotiations dragging out a bit longer than anyone
expected.

...That, counting Pop's encounter with Gus Grissom at a friend's gun
shop when Gus needed his hunting rifle serviced, shows that I've got
some personal link to the Glory Days besides my personal one - the
Windows background I did a while back that I'm told by some NASA
OMBloggers is their background on their workstations at JPL and KSC:

http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld/images/sb/99-01/VAB-Orion-Flyby.jpg

* Murray & Cox's "Apollo: Race to the Moon". This is really the
"companion piece" to Andy's book, and one of these days I need to get
.TXT versions of both and mesh them together. They tend to fill in
each other's gaps, although M&C did one thing that I found fault with
- they skimped on the missions following A13 quite a bit. Those
missions were just as important as A11 or A13 - in fact, each mission
deserves the same amount of coverage - extensive! Still, it's a great
read, although it's a hard-to-find book these days, as IIRC it's out
of print still. There might be a downloable PDF version, but don't
quote me on this until someone else here backs this up.

* Scott Carpenter's book, "For Spacious Skies". Gives some good
insight into how Scotty ticked while the other Original Seven tocked,
as well as into the early days of the program itself. Scott's daughter
was lurking around here when she was writing the book, so some of us
had some influence on how the book came out. Contrary to some, she was
not hiding as Bbo Hallr or one of the Maxson trash :-) :-)

* Gene Kranz' book. This is actually a better book for understanding
what being the Flight Director is all about, even moreso than Chris
Kraft's. It gives you a full understanding of what kind of person
Kranz was, and how he was able to withstand the pressures longer than
any other person to hold the position of "Flight", and would probably
still be there today in that position if his wife could still come up
with unique white vest designs.

* Sy Liebergot's book. This one will give you incredible insight on
the other Flight Controller's jobs and lives, especially that of an
EECOM whose mission has just turned into *** and might just take
three lives down the drain with it. Sy was a regular around here for a
while, but the trolling trash has sort of reduced him to lurking
status these days. And people still wonder why I feel trolls should be
executed on live TV during prime time hours...

* Asif Siddiqi's "Challenge to Apollo", which IIRC is now available as
a downloadable PDF for free. Still, I bought the original print
version, which is a book so thick and heavy that when it was released
the regulars here non-jokingly suggested that a sticker be appled
warning readers not to set this book on the edge of a coffee table if
small children were playing close by. The book was so damn heavy that
it would have crushed a small child had it fallen on them! Still, once
you get used to reading a book while suspended by a crane, you'll find
that this one is probably the most comprehensive historical analsis of
the first four decades of the Soviet space program. It's a must-read!

* Lovell & Kluger's "Lost Moon". What Opie either glossed over or
didn't show you on "Apollo 13", this book will go into the details.
The only complaint I've heard is that some sections tend to bog down a
bit, but despite the subject matter this isn't an action-advenure
novel. It's a historical record of an event as told by the commander
of that mission, and damn well worth the read!

* Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy". The book that doesn't put "paid" to
the Moon Hoax Morons as much as it sends them a bill for wasting
everyone's time with their bull*** hoax theories. Read this, and then
use it to beat sense into any moon hoax moron you come across!

* Roger Bilstine's "Stages to Saturn". This one's online at:http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4206/sp4206.htm

* Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon. One of
the more "action-packed" books on the Apollo program, but there's a
caveat here: according to a *lot* of sources, this book is essentially
a reworking of a movie script that Stormy was working on to present
North American's work on the Apollo CM and S-II components in a far
"brighter" light than they were cast in during the events preceeding
and following the Apollo I fire. Great insight on the difficulties in
fabricating the S-II stages, tho.

* Mike Collin's "Lift-Off!" Mike wrote this more for young adults, but
it's still an excelent primer for those wanting to know what the Glory
Years were all about. IIRC, it also holds the distinction of being the
first book to publish a comparison sketch of all the Mercury
proposals, which started quite a number of threads on .policy when the
book was first released - .history wasn't around back then!

* "We Seven". Sure, it's ghostwriten from start to finish, but it'll
still give you just as much understanding about the myths behind "The
Right Stuff" as Wolfe's book simply by telling you the myths.

...One place I can recommend that you check out for any of these books
used - and hopefully cheaper - is Boggs Spacebooks:

http://www.boggsspace.com/

...They're essentially the only ones who can "spam" the group without
everyone jumping on their ass, because they're an honest, reputable
supplier and they only post sale information on a really rare basis.
There's only one other person whose "spam" efforts are tolerated, and
that's because Scott Hedrick is also as reputa...wait, what am I
saying! :-)

Which ones did you dislike?

...The first one that comes to mind that I've read was "Moon Shot".
Benedict and Barbree's ghost-writing of Al Shepard and Deke Slayton's
"autobiography" is so full of errors that it's become the "ultimate
bad joke" around here since it first saw print. The four-hour
documentary series produced in conjunction with it was more accurate,
and far more entertaining.

...Others here have bashed one other book by one of the Shuttle-MIR
Astronauts, but I can't recall which one that was. "Dragonfly",
perhaps? Either way, it was basically blown off as the blatherings of
a disgruntled Astronaut.

...Another such book - probably the worst of the lot - was Brian T.
O'Leary's "Making of an Ex-Astronaut". The whole book is nothing but a
"poor li'l ol' me, beaten up by the big bad test pilots and chased off
because I was a wuss!" pile of whinings that aren't worth the
sacrifice the trees made to provide the paper. O'Leary is probably the
best prime example for the *wrong* stuff, and should you happen to
have the time to waste reading his blatherings be prepared to take all
of his complaints about NASA and the Astronaut training processes with
at least two pounds of salt per whine.

                                OM
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Dragonfly is a book by an investigative journalist that details
problems that occurred on missions to Mir while several NASA
astronauts were stationed there.  Jerry Linenger was the main NASA
astronaut on whom the book centered.
I listened to Dragonfly on audio, and it was very engaging.  Has
anyone read Buzz Aldrin's Men from Earth and
First Man by James Hansen?  I am enjoying both of them.  I have had
problems with Moonshot too.  Since it isn't told in first person, at
all, it doesn't feel at all like you are getting the experiences of
the astronauts.  I don't know why they even put their names on the
cover.  I intend to finish it eventually, but it hasn't done much to
inspire me to continue with it.

All the best,

Rob
I still intend to finish
it- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Currently, I am reading "How Apollo Flew to the Moon" by W. David
Woods. It is different in that it spends less time with the politics
and the personalities involved and more on the "nuts & bolts" of how
it was done. It is a techno-geek's delight describing the
technologies and mechanics of how the flights were accomplished.

If you are the kind of person that watches launches and wishes that
you could listen to the ground and air to ground communications loops,
instead of the reporters and the PAO . . . this is probably the kind
of book you would like.

The book has some interesting tidbits and hints of things as well.
Apollo 16's Ken Mattingly was quoted regarding about how careful he
was to ensure the LM and CM were properly aligned prior to hard-
docking. Mattingly noted that NASA management had "busted" the Apollo
15 crew for forcing the two craft together during docking. Apparently
16 had better results in terms of alignment, but Mattingly stated that
the effort was "pretty expensive" in RCS fuel.

I am only half way through, but so far, I am loving it, so I would
(conditionally) recommend it.

take care . . .

John
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