The Real Space Cowboys, with Bonus DVD Video Disc - Softcover

Buckbee, Ed; Schirra, Wally

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1894959213 ISBN 13: 9781894959216

Publisher: Apogee Books, 2005

Synopsis

The tension-filled careers of the Mercury Seven, a handful of elite fighter pilots selected as America's first astronauts, is traced in this account of the dreams and nightmares of the early days of the U.S. manned space program. A behind-the-scenes look at the competitive and often arrogant atmosphere of the initiative—including details on the struggles of deciding whether to send chimpanzees or humans to space and the conflicts between NASA engineers and astronauts—is included along with an account of the program's moments of humor, from recurrent "gotcha" training session pranks to the round of drinks that a dubious answer to the question Are you a turtle? could entail. While most of these men eventually made it to space and even the moon, their lives as a part of NASA continued long after. The story of their work with motivational programs such as the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, U.S. Space Camp, and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center is also included.

About this title

About the Author:

Ed Buckbee is a former director of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and a NASA public affairs officer who worked with the astronauts of the early Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. He works as an advisor and consultant for NASA and is a sought-after spokesman and advocate for the continued exploration of space. He lives in Huntsville, Alabama. Wally Schirra is the only Mercury astronaut who flew in all three of the nation's pioneering space programs: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. During the Apollo moon landing missions he was an on-air colleague of CBS-TV's Walter Cronkite. He was also instrumental in starting the Space Camp program in Huntsville, Alabama, in the early 1980's.

From Booklist:

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
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About this edition

• Publisher: Apogee Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1894959213
• ISBN 13: 9781894959216
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168