5 comments about Countdown: An Autobiography (Silver arrow books).

1. A very well written book by a very intelligent man. However, I am not a corporate manager or am I interested in corporate management. The first half the book was very good; about growing up, West Point and NASA but the second half of the book was Mr. Borman blaming the unions for the failure of Eastern Airlines. I don't care about the failure of Eastern Airlines and I don't buy a book written by a great astronaut to find out why it failed. I buy books by astronauts to learn about the trials, tribulations and successes in one of the greatest eras of American history, early space exploration. I don't feel this book was an autobiograhy of an astronaut but the purging of a very bitter and disallusioned man after a failure of grand proportions. If you want to learn about the problems of management versus unions this would be a great read, if not, stop at the begining of the Eastern Airlines debacle. Mr. Borman was and is an American hero who should be celebrated for what he gave his country but nobody cares about Charlie Bryan. I had to constantly keep reminding myself this book was written in 1988, not 1968 or 2006. My copy of this book is an Easton Press Limited Edition gold bound series, numbered and autographed by Mr. Borman. I will always cherish this book but I will not read it again.



2. An interesting tale from beginning to end. This is a frank account of Mr. Borman's life in and out of the astronaut business and beyond. About half of the book is Borman's life before and during his tenure in the space program, the rest is his experience with Eastern Airlines which is very interesting. The tale of how the unions destroyed one of the largest U.S. air carriers is sad but perhaps the perspective of Borman is a little bit skewed. This book however is still a good read.



3. One reason I picked up Countdown at Half-Price Books was because I remember Frank Borman doing commercials for Eastern Airlines when I was a kid. Although I expected more of his book to be about the Apollo days, I was by no means disappointed. This book is actually three books: One about Borman at West Point, the other about Borman in the Air Force, and the one about Borman at Eastern Airlines. The one I liked the best was about Eastern Airlines.

   Like Frank Borman, I am an engineer myself (I grew up on NASA's back gate) and I really enjoyed his "tell it like it is" and get "back to basics approach" at Eastern. When Borman became President of Eastern in 1975, he got rid of the private jets, the fancy cars, the plush office furniture, and said "get to work." He also streamlined the middle-management and got rid of the "deadwood" and implemented a lot more "common sense." He thought Eastern buying SST's would be ludricrous on the Miami to New York route (because they would have to begin descent too soon), got rid of planes that were fuel inefficient (especially after looking at maintenance logs and finding that repairs were costing three times of what new planes were), and I don't know of any corporate president that had enough class to negiotiate leasing four Airbus aircraft at no cost. Leasing Airbuses was an awesome and risky move that paid off. Several airlines today use Airbus (Northwest, USAir, United) and Borman helped pave the way for America to buy these. Being a pilot and an engineer, Borman would even fly some of these planes himself. These are three examples of why engineers today are needed in higher management positions.

   Borman also made the people of Eastern unite after he became President. He would visit them at airports and fly on planes with them, looking at "lets all work together and accomplish the mission. We have to earn our wings every day." Borman was always honest with his fellow employees about what was going on (no bulls--- )and followed through with "Duty, Honor, Country". Eastern Airlines profited more from 1976 to 1980 under Borman's leadership. What killed Eastern in my opininion was Airline Deregulation and the unions fighting against Eastern, primarily the IAM. Borman tells much of this story.

   One thing that threw me off as I read this was how many airlines were in business when I was a kid that aren't there anymore (Braniff, Piedmont, Pan Am, People's Express, Air Florida, etc.) I know Braniff was an example of executives taking care of their own interests (fancy cars, meals, penthouse office suites,etc.) Frank Borman always had his head and his heart in the right place -EASTERN. I learned a great deal from Countdown-we need more executive officers like Frank Borman.




4. I have yet to see a better and more credible depiction of the upside/downside of astronaut persona. In his modest and understated way Frank Borman describes his career through the military, the astronaut program, and the private business sector. A genuinely honest man who embodied the best values of middle America, Borman commanded two of the most visible and critical flights of the early manned space program: the epic endurance flight Gemini 7 in 1965 and the stunning circumlunar Apollo 8 adventure of Christmas Eve 1968. Widely respected in NASA and government circles, he was selected to lead the investigation of the Apollo fire which killed his comrades Grissom, White, and Chafee. He was, in every respect, an upright military man who embraced the challenge of the space race with dogged tenacity.

   So why, with every page, does the reader feel like he is moving inexorably toward a train wreck? Perhaps because Borman's candor compels him to chronicle the downside of his single-minded determination and doggedness. It is hard to say if the author intended to give us this psychological two-edged sword, or whether it is simply the fruit of honesty. In either case the clues are there: with every career choice, with every renewed commitment to NASA, Borman etched his name on the honor roll of American space heroes. And, in the process, insulated himself from family and society, with painful consequences.

   Borman's personal world begins to unravel, ironically, at the time of his greatest triumph, the Apollo 8 mission to the moon. His wife Susan, already stretched thin by years as a dutiful military wife in the spotlight and totally unnerved by the Apollo 1 fire, drifted into the murky world of alcoholism. Borman admits that, totally absorbed as he was with the Apollo Program, he was completely out of touch with her drinking, relieved that at least his wife was not using prescription tranquilizers, then in vogue among astronaut wives. [Andrew Chaikin's "A Man on the Moon" describes Susan Borman's problems during Apollo 8 in much greater detail than Borman could bring himself to describe.]

   Sadly unaware of the unfolding tragedy at home, Borman retired from the Air Force and proceeded to make the grand-daddy of all bad career choices, particularly considering the choices at hand. It is not clear from the text whether the author truly understood the complexities of Eastern Airlines' financial difficulties, or the character of the people he would need to do business with. Borman does concede that he knew next to nothing about unions, which would be his undoing at Eastern along with deregulation and a sagging economy. Despite his earnestness and hard work-and no one worked harder-the book ends at February 23, 1986, the night of the Eastern bankruptcy, a broken ex-astronaut crying in his wife's arms.

   It is a troubling ending. It is also a reflection of the conundrum of the race to the moon. The United States would never have overtaken the Russians in the space race without men like Borman who sacrificed everything for the goal of national success. But this work reveals another side of the space race: how the race to the moon collected men like Borman, took those assets of steely self-determination, and turned them against the astronauts themselves. This is a cost of the Apollo Program that is rarely discussed, and we, like the dazed author at the end of the book, have to decide for ourselves if the cost was worth it.

   This philosophical twist, perhaps unexpectedly, is the author's biggest contribution to space literature. Borman's account of his missions reveals little new material, and he remains too private a man to titillate the reader with his uncensored thoughts about, say, Jim Lovell, with whom he spent an eternity in the closest of quarters. As a narrative of the race to the moon, this is a superficial work from one so intimately connected to the space program. But my guess is that Borman's real interest in writing his autobiography was less about space hardware and more about figuring out just what the hell happened to him.




5. Borman's "Countdown" tells the riveting tale of his boyhood, his Air Force days, his immense contributions to the space program, and his airline career. His participation in the Apollo 1 fire investigation and subsequent Senate testimony were instrumental in getting the moon program back on track, for to everyone concerned - astronauts, Congressmen, and the press - Borman's integrity was unquestionable. This comes across immediately to the reader through Borman's narrative, but not through self-serving "Boy Do I Love Me" puffery. Indeed, Borman's sincere modesty immediately reassures the reader that this is a man who lives the motto "To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth".

   Some of the ugly, goofball politics of the time come up as Borman and his crew are humiliated by Cornell students egged on by none other than Carl Sagan. I never really thought much of Sagan before reading Borman's book, and I think far less of him now; though in the interest of fairness I will say that Sagan's motivations were more selfish than political (he always objected to the expense of manned spaceflight, and instead advocated unmanned exploration as the best way to obtain the hard science he insisted on - this came up in a lecture Sagan gave in Seattle shortly before his death while undergoing cancer treatment), he comes across as the petty, self-serving geek he really was, not the "Mr. Friendly Scientist" he portrayed himself as in his works. Borman and his men deserved far better.

   The wanton destruction of Eastern Airlines by the active sabotage of the Machinists Union is also well documented. Borman's no-nonsense, high-speed, low-drag leadership style was lost on the proto-human union bosses. It's really too bad Eastern went under, but having read what was truly going on, I now know that it wasn't Borman's fault. It speaks volumes for Borman's character that despite some bitterness and finger-pointing on his part (though his points were well-made), he accepts responsibility for his mistakes and shortcomings in the loss of Eastern, displaying the same integrity with which he has led all of his life. It's a really good book by a fine man. As another reviewer said, we desperately need more men like him. Sadly, in this politically correct, touchy-feely age, Borman's kind are a vanishing breed, and his book answers the question that titles this review. The battle to save Eastern was foretold decades ago by Ayn Rand. Borman didn't want to shrug, but was forced to. I hope the Machinists are happy now.

No comments about The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters: Over 50 True Accounts of Triumph and Tragedy in Space, Taking You Right Inside the Capsule Cockpit and Beyond.

2 comments about The Last Man On the Moon.

1. I enjoyed Gene Cernan reading this book himself. Hearing his own descriptions of the wonder and beauty of space was wonderful.
   
   Perhaps I'm biased. He's a Chicago native, as I am, and hearing a regular Chicago guy expressing such wonder of his experiences is a real treat for me. A lot of personal identification with what he accomplished.
   
   As to the "politics" of NASA, I took it to mean that the astronauts were a really competitive bunch, which is the reality of the situation. At no point does Cernan accuse any of his fellow astronauts of dirty pool; the competition was intense but clean. Should this be a surprise?
   
   I was a little less impressed about his characterization of Wally Schirra as an insubordinate whiner. You could just as easily see Wally's actions as advocating for astronaut safety and well-being.
   
   Cernan's antipathy to Schirra is much like the way a manager feels about a union representative. And this should not be surprising; among all the celebrities Cernan counts as friends, at the forefront is Spiro and Judy Agnew. Well, we're known by the company we keep; Cernan must be a pretty conservative dude, politically.
   
   I do like, though, his forthright and blunt descriptive style. If you don't want to hear the straight stuff (and a little cussing, too), don't buy this book. On the other hand, if those traits enhance your enjoyment, you'll love this book. Either way, it adds something important to the history and literature of space exploration.



2. My chief complaint with this book on tape is that it is read poorly, probably by the author. Although Moon Shot by Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton was panned in Amazon reviews, I very much enjoyed the book on tape version because a professional actor did the reading. Cernan's book on tape could have benefited immensely from an actor, too.

   I found myself wondering how much co-author Don Davis helped Cernan with the descriptive language and thought it was a waste that Cernan (if he was the reader) couldn't do justice to the words.

   As for content, Cernan relies too much on cliches, and I tend to agree with the reviewer who said Cernan writes too much about the internal politics of mission assignment.

   However, his account of his first marriage made me wonder how much he wasn't telling. At first he seems to go out of his way to explain that other astronauts cheated on their wives, but he did not. His marriage was sound. Later in the book we hear how he spends too little time with his family. And at the end he tells us they got divorced four years after he left NASA. He, of course, got remarried and had two more children. Sounds like just another guy who traded in his faithful wife of the same age on a younger model. I ended up feeling sorry for Barbara.

3 comments about Journey of Hope: The Story of Ilan Ramon, Israel's First Astronaut.

1. Saturday February 1, 2003 was a sad day for the U.S.: The shuttle Columbia disintegrated in space, killing flight commander Rick D. Husband; pilot William C. McCool; payload commander Michael P. Anderson; mission specialists David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla and Laurel Clark; and Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon.
   
   It was especially difficult for Israel and the Jewish people, who had placed so much pride and hope into the voyage of Ramon, the son of a refugee from Germany and a veteran of Israel's War of Independence and a mother who had survived Auschwitz. In 1981, he had flown with seven other Israeli F-16 pilots who destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad. "If I can prevent another Holocaust, I'm ready to sacrifice my life for this," Ramon had selflessly told his comrades.
   
   All Israel and the Jewish people considered Ramon's mission a source of honor, a testament to positive spirit, despite a troubled time that had claimed 768 Israelis in terrorist attacks since September 2000.
   
   Ramon was cool-headed, modest, "a humble hero," who although he was not an observant Jew, took with him Jewish symbols into space--a small Torah smuggled out of Bergen-Belsen by a Holocaust survivor, a mezuzah wrapped in barbed wire, and the drawing of a moonscape by a victim of Theresienstadt. For Israel and the Jewish people, he had said, it was "a very symbolic mission."
   
   And so it was. For Ramon reminded the Jewish people, said a Jerusalem Post editorial after his death, "we can make the desert bloom and build modern cities on sand dunes. And we can reach for the stars."
   
   This book is a fitting tribute to a Jewish hero.
   
   --Alyssa A. Lappen



2. I just wanted to thank you that you wrote this book



3. I want everyone to know that this book was a labor of love. I want to help make people aware of the life and the legacy of Ilan Ramon, a hero and inspiring figure for all of us.

3 comments about Who's Who in Space: The First 25 Years.

1. This mighty book is a veritable kaleidoscope of intriguing personalities; all of them with a common legacy - they were all selected at some time as a candidate to fly into space. Many made it, while others didn't for varying reasons, but they are all in here, with individual photographs accompanying each biographical entry. It is a brilliant concept, and extraordinarily handy for spaceflight researchers and biographers such as myself. It is as close to indispensible as any book can be.
   
   The only difficulty for the author in producing such a book lies in the fact that every year, ineluctably, sees a whole new batch of spaceflight candidates selected; the reason why this book has already been revised twice (and let's hope for a fourth revision).
   
   Moreso than any other book, "Who's Who in Space" offers a history of human spaceflight by showcasing the men and women who were and are an integral part of that history, and the author is to be commended for his diligent and ongoing research. Highly recommended in all editions.



2. Who are the people from around the world who have traveled into space? This book will tell you.
   
   In concise, accurate snapshots, we learn not just about the most famous spacefarers like John Glenn, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but also the lesser-known - people became the only person to date to fly from their country, those who were selected but never flew - a wide variety of interesting characters. As a reference to the Space Age, it is indispensible and fascinating.



3. Having always been interested in the space program and particularly the astronauts that flew the missions, this book is definitely one of my favourites. What makes it so interesting is that it gives you a CV on all the astronauts, and therefore anyone who has any desire to become an astronaut can begin to see what is required. In the nutshell a superb book !

5 comments about Almost Heaven: Women On The Frontiers Of Space.

1. I am one of those who suffered through reading an error-filled hardback copy of this book, and was immensely pleased to see a paperback edition come out with major revisions and corrections. So, firstly - avoid the hardback, read only the paperback edition.
   
   This is an intriguing book with a lot of interesting things to say about women in the space program, both in the past and in the present. A good amount of accurate social context is given, making it stand out from some other books on the subject. There are still some subjective judgements made that I disagree with, but that of course is the author's opinion and perogative, and Kevles' arguments are always interesting.
   
   It still doesn't beat my all-time-favorite when it comes to the subject of American and Russian women hoping to fly in space in the 1960s. That book is the excellent Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of S), which in two great chapters blows away all the competition.
   
   Nevertheless, read this book too for some interesting - and sometimes surprising - insights.



2. 
   I've just read the paperback version of this book, with all the comments people posted here about errors in the hardback printed out and by my side (thank you for posting them). It looks like they were all fixed for the paperback edition - great to see when a publishing house takes notice like that.
   
   The revised paperback version of this book is an excellent, absorbing read which I highly recommend!



3. Kevles is a remarkably good writer. Both this book and "Naked To The Bone" are amongst the best in making science writing accessible, readable, and relevant to social mores. She's damn good.
   
   But I ended up throwing this book across the room a few times in frustration. The fact checking was, frankly, lousy. There were so many elementary mistakes (the date of the Apollo 11 moonlanding wrong in a SPACE book, fer crissakes?) that it ruined an otherwise compelling read.



4. I am surprised just how much is wrong in this book. I am even more puzzled by the unquestioning support given to it by luminaries such as John Klineberg and Mary Ellen Strote. While a writer on health and fitness topics should not be expected to have a thorough knowledge of space history and know how many errors this book contains, I would have thought that Klineberg, former director of Loral and the Goddard Space Flight Center, would have read it a little closer and spotted the many errors. It's puzzling to see how many glowing reviews this book is receiving despite its deep flaws.



5. Let me start by adding that I just received my copy of this amazing story a couple of weeks ago, and was awed by it. Quite a wonderful read about a most amazingly hidden aspect of the space program.

   Okay, several have previously stated that there are no major technical errors in the book. On page 46, when describing Skylab, she notes that the pace station was 17 cubic feet, divided into two separate levels. Since the trunk of my Jetta is 13 cubic feet, I decided to check this out with NASA. Skylab had a habitable volume of 12,700 cubic feet. That is a major error that can not go unnoticed.

   If this book is republished, I hope this type of minor error gets corrected. If not, poor editing will continue to diminish an otherwise important topic and marvelously crafted tome.

No comments about Ronald McNair: Astronaut (Scholastic Edition) (Black Americans of Achievement).

5 comments about Buzz Aldrin Reaching for the Moon.

1. The age range for this book is listed on the cover as 6-9 and not 9-12.



2. My 2.5 year old daughter loves this book. I read it to her a few times a week. It is just the right lenght for her to fall asleep.



3. One of the greatest joys of this parenthood has been watching my four-year-old daughter come to understand that this is a true story, that men actually traveled to the moon and walked on its surface. Even though the moon landings were something I grew up with, the story grows more powerful with each retelling. It is one of her favorites and one of mine as well.



4. Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. was the second man to walk on the moon when he followed Neil Armstrong on July 16, 1969, while Michael Collins circled the moon in the Apollo 11 spacecraft. In "Reaching for the Moon," Aldrin tells the story of his life that led up to walking on the moon, taking key episodes from his life and presenting them as life lessons to his young readers, such as sinking in a lake because he would not let go of a bucket of rocks he had collected ("I knew that if something was important to you, you had to hold on"). Aldrin also shows how various things in his life foreshadowed what he would do on the moon (e.g., his mother's maiden name was Moon and his first airplane flight was in a small plane painted to look like an eagle).
   
   The book follows Aldrin from his childhood and playing sports in school to graduating from West Point and joining the Air Force. After flying combat missions in the Korean War, Aldrin applied to the astronaut program and was not accepted until the second time he tried. The number two also comes up when Aldrin's first space flight was a Gemini mission. The description of the Apollo 11 mission is quite straightforward and Aldrin emphasizes the importance of what they were doing without every talking about how it came to be that he was the second man on the moon instead of the first (the reasoning was actually quite simple: Armstrong was a civilian, Aldrin was still in the military, and the U.S. government did not want a soldier to be the first person on the moon). Everybody remembers Armstrong's first words on the moon, but Aldrin recalls his own apt description of the moon as "Magnificent desolation."
   
   Aldrin's narrative ends with the plaque that he and Armstrong left on the moon and ends with a message promoting space exploration to his readers. Aldrin does not touch on the depression and alcoholism he had to contend with after leaving NASA and which he detailed in his autobiography "Return to Earth." But you cannot fault Aldrin for his choice of perspective in this book. In his dedication Aldrin calls the original astronauts explorers of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions to be the first generation of space explorers. The second generation would be those flying shuttle missions to the space station, while the third generation of future space explorers would be the young students who read this book. The paintings in "Reaching for the Moon" are by Wendell Minor, and older readers will note that in the two-page painting of the George Washington Bridge below the bridge on the New York City side is the little red lighthouse of children's book fame.



5. We Love This Book ! With the space shuttle being on the news so much, my 4 year old daughter became interested in space. We got this book for her and now she wants us to read it every night.

No comments about Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen: Stück 3. Schopenhauer als Erzieher.

1 comments about A Hero Borne (A tribute to John Glenn).

1. It's more than a biography of John Glenn. It's more than a poetry book. I'll keep one for myself, and will get one for my old parents. I'm sure it will encourage them as his last mission did.