Review by Choice Review
This book provides a glimpse into the lives of the astronauts from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. Author Buckbee is a former NASA public affairs officer who personally knew many of these crew members. Many excerpts from taped interviews with these astronauts are included, and the conflicts between the engineers and Mercury 7 pilots are discussed (e.g., why should chimpanzees fly before humans?). Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut to fly into space, receives prominent treatment as does Wernher von Braun, the German immigrant who was the chief engineer and architect of the manned space program. Evidently, von Braun was superlative in selling the value of the space program to the American public as well as to influential politicians. The book, like most in the Apogee series, contains a double-sided DVD that alone is worth the price. The DVD has NASA documentaries on the early space program along with a wealth of other materials, including an interview with von Braun from the early 1970s and the humorous tribute to Shepard prepared by astronaut Wally Schirra. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. General readers. J. Z. Kiss Miami University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
The head of Space Camp (Buckbee) and a distinguished retired astronaut and raconteur tell the story of the American space program, through the moon landings. Originally conceived as a tribute to mutual friend Alan Shepard, the first American to orbit the earth, the book ends up providing capsule biographies of all of the Mercury Seven, the additional astronauts who landed on the moon, astronauts who didn't return safely, and nonastronauts who were key figures in getting into space, such as John F. Kennedy and Wernher von Braun. Buckbee and Schirra maintain a sense of proportion, and also of humor, about the perils, promises, frustrations, and failures of those days. They remind us that the Apollo pad fire that killed Gus Grissom and his crew nearly produced the degree of panic that the more recent shuttle crashes have--and that the space program keeps going. Schirra gets and takes the last chance to flavor the book by drawing on his matchless collection of anecdotes. --Roland Green Copyright 2005 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
