Riding Rockets by Mike Mullane

[Ottawan]

I just finished reading astronaut Mike Mullane's autobiography "Riding Rockets". I must say that in 40+ years of reading spaceflight histories, biographies and autobiographies this is the most entertaining and informative book by far.

Prior to this the best autobiography I had read was Walt Cunningham's "The All-American Boys".
Mullane moves the bar up several notches with his inside information and excellent sense of humour. As I mentioned in a PM to spacecat this is one of the few books that has ever made me actually laugh out loud while reading it.

It is a facinating story of the first group of space shuttle astronauts the TFNG's (Thirty-Five New Guys) chosen in 1978. It was the first group to include black and asian Americans and the first group to include women, which drastically altered the dynamics of the astronaut office under George Abbey and John Young.

The book traces the history of the TFNG's through Mullane's retirement after STS 36. His inside anecdotes on the day to day lives of astronauts may soon become the stuff of legends. A far cry from the "Right Stuff" Tom Wolfe astronauts.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the early operations of the STS missions.
In the history, the politics of flight crew assignment, the effect on astronauts families, the camraderie between the TFNG's and the absolutely stunning descriptions of the earth from space provided through Mullane's eyes on his three space shuttle flights.

As a matter of fact, I put down "First Man" to read Mullane's book first!!!

 

[Jirnsum]

Thanks for the tip ottawan: I'll make sure to pick it up next time I'm in The States

[Big RI Joe]

I think "Dragonfly " is an excellent read too. I sorta liked the part where Mike got that phone call while on Capcom duty.........

[evancise]

I have to admit I'm still only half way through this book, but find it quite fascinating.  One thing that really helped me out once he started talking about training for his first flight was reminding myself that this was pre-Challenger.  This meant that they didn't wear the orange ascent/entry suits, have any type of escape capability after launch, etc.  Very insightful book - the first half, anyway.  And I agree with others - this book has made me laugh out loud a few times!  I recommend it.

[Tranquility Base]

I made time to read both of the new shuttle astronaut autobiographies this summer.  I read this book first, then I went for Tom Jones's book, Skywalking.  I enjoyed reading both of them back to back because the Jones book picks up right where the Mullane book leaves off.  Mullane became an astronaut in 1978, right at the beginning of the shuttle program, made his last flight in 1990, and then Jones became an astronaut that same year.  The two books together take the reader from the beginning of the shuttle right to the space station, which was interesting.

One of the most interesting parts of Jones's book, I thought, was the forward that John Young wrote.  Even now, after all of the autobiographies about Apollo-era astronauts, I had never seen Young even write a forward to a book.  I thought it was well done, though, because he mentioned the benefits of space research.  Radar images of the Earth can someday be used to prevent aircraft accidents into terrain, for example, or to predict potentially catastrophic earthquakes and volcanoes.  Jones went on to describe the crushing setback of his canceled spacewalks in 1996, and then finally getting outside and helping to install the space station science lab in 2001. 

Anyway, I would recommend both of these books if anybody on this forum is interested.