Riding Rockets, The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut

Mullane, Mike (NASA Astronaut)

Published by Scribner, New York - London - Toronto - Sydney, 2007

About this Item

On February 1, 1978, the first group of space shuttle astronauts, twenty-nine men and six women, were introduced to the world. Among them would be history makers, including the first American woman and the first African American in space. This assembly of astronauts would carry NASA through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Four would die on Challenger. USAF Colonel Mike Mullane was a member of this astronaut class, and Riding Rockets is his-story - told with a candor never before seen in an astronaut's memoir. Mullane strips the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are - human. His tales of arrested development among military flyboys working with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists are sometimes bawdy, often hilarious, and always entertaining. Mullane vividly portrays every aspect of the astronaut experience from telling a female technician which urinecollection condom size is a fit; to walking along a Florida beach in a last, tearful goodbye with a spouse; to a wild, intoxicating, terrifying ride into space; to hearing "Taps" played over a friend's grave. Mullane is brutally honest in his criticism of a NASA leadership whose bungling would precipitate the Challenger disaster. Riding Rockets is a story of life in all its fateful uncertainty, of the impact of a family tragedy on a nine-year-old boy, of the revelatory effect of a machine called Sputnik, and of the life-steering powers of lust, love, and marriage. It is a story of the human experience that will resonate long after the call of "Wheel stop." 382 p. photos.

Seller Inventory # 20999

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Riding Rockets, The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut
• Publisher: Scribner, New York - London - Toronto - Sydney
• Publication Date: 2007
• Binding: Softcover
• Condition: very good condition, new book