Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut

NASA astronaut Mike Mullane delivers a hilariously candid and often raw astronaut memoir of life in the Space Shuttle era. Selected in 1978 as part of the groundbreaking astronaut class—the first to include women—Mullane exposes the unfiltered reality behind the heroic veneer of NASA.

His stories bounce between bawdy military-flyboy antics, interactions with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists, and the unforgiving bureaucracy of NASA leadership. Mullane pulls no punches: from drinking games at mission briefings to the embarrassing logistics of urinary-collection devices, no detail is too small or too irreverent.

He recounts the emotional highs of launch and the sublime beauty of orbit, and the heartbreak of losing four crewmates in the Challenger disaster. His tough critique of NASA’s culture—especially its sexist undercurrents and managerial ineptitude—makes this more than a spaceflight chronicle; it’s a cultural memoir of human spaceflight.

With uproarious humor, brutal honesty, and emotional depth, Riding Rockets offers an unforgettable look into the life of an astronaut: the risks, the camaraderie, the mistakes, and the moments of awe that define a generation of space explorers.

Upon his graduation from West Point in 1967, Mike Mullane was commissioned in the USAF. He flew 134 combat missions in Vietnam. Selected in the first group of space shuttle astronauts, he completed three space missions. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife, Donna, and enjoys the challenge of Colorado's fourteen-thousand-foot peaks—six climbed, forty-seven to go. He is also an acclaimed motivational speaker. For more information visit MikeMullane.com.