On this page: Apollo 13: Anniversary Edition Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut The Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race Way of the Explorer, Revised Edition: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century and Beyond (Visions of Science) One Small Step?: The Great Moon Hoax and the Race to Dominate Earth from Space DARK MOON : Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers: Apollo and the Whistle-blowers Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration Orbit: NASA Astronauts Photograph the Earth Apollo 13: Anniversary Edition Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Klugar Hardcover Houghton Mifflin (Trade) 08 April, 2002 Amazon price*: £13.21 (list price £13.21) Used price*: £7.88 More Info & Buy Online Review: All She Ever Wanted (3/5) very readable Review: Great!!! (5/5) An outstanding account of the events of that week in April 1970. If you enjoyed the film, you'll love this book! Review: Triumphant teamwork (5/5) I was too small to remember much of the feelings around the world when the news broke that Apollo 13 had had an explosion onboard, and the crew's safety was in doubt. By all accounts the whole world seemed to hold its collective breath until the command module splashed down. In this book the inside anxiety of the crew, as well as all at mission control and their contractors is conveyed. It is really a story of how everyone---hundreds, if not thousands of people---pulled together to save the lives of three men, left drifting in space with dangerously low resources. The inventiveness of solving each problem is amazing; and the problems kept mounting. Carbondioxide poisoning, skewed trajectories, no navigation computers, potentially damaged rockets, doubtful heatshield. At each stage the team worked the problem as best they could with inventiveness and true grit; never giving up. The explanation of the accident's cause is as intriguing as the tale itself (glossed over in the film), and serves as warning to all who work on safety critical system. It is a true American tale---a success in failure, as it showed how America could "organize and measure the best of [thier] energies and skills" as Kennedy said at Rice University. This collaborative effort between the commander of Apollo 13, Jim Lovell, and Jeff Kluger makes for a terrific read and captures the feeling of the times wonderfully. A tale which is now part of American history. Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane Paperback Simon & Schuster Ltd 21 May, 2007 Amazon price*: £6.99 (list price £9.99) Used price*: £1.27 More Info & Buy Online Review: Seat of the pants stuff (5/5) This is probably the best astronaut autobiography I have read with the possible exception of Michael Collin's book. Colonel Mike Mullane was the first generation of the space shuttle astronauts specifically selected to fly on the machine. His book is a no holds bared account of his time before and at NASA and the courage, terror and perhaps foolhardy nature it takes to ride into space on rocket which basically has no effective escape system. Personally I liked all the anecdotes that are scattered throughout the book, I particularly liked the way he described the meeting of two cultures, scientist astronaut and military astronaut. Having served in the infantry and being a scientist I can well appreciate the two would not initially get along. As Colonel Mullane describes he was a product of his environment, Vietnam veteran and survivor of a catholic school. However, the moral of his story and life education is the respect he developed for women who want a career and also people who are prepared to put their life on the line in pursuit of a common goal which is unobtainable to most. This is one of my selected `toilet' books and it is well thumbed companion. Friends who come to stay always get addicted when reading it and basically only emerge when nagged by their wives, who then get addicted to. Well worth the read. Review: A no holds barred account of 80s NASA (4/5) I bought this as i wanted to know all about spaceflight and the workings of NASA from someone who had actually been there and i got just that despite the personality of the author. Mullane recounts his life before NASA, his yearnings for space and then all his time at NASA. His intense enthusiasm for space drives the narrative. He gives a gritty and honest view of what it was like to work at NASA including internal politics and competition for flight places. Specifically his detail on waiting to fly, sitting on the launch pad and being in space was the part i was most excited to read. However it does come across immediately that Mullane is (and freely admits) a chauvinist, extremely childish and living up to a gung-ho, yee-ha 'Top Gun' stereotype of American fighter pilots. The regular comments and jokes about his other colleagues, pranks and attitude to the world were really tiresome and quite shocking in places. This continues throughout and although doesn't stop this from being a great read is a continual annoyance. Review: If you are interested in the US Space Program, then read this book. (5/5) There are a good number of astronaut biographies available. Inevitably there is fair amount of repetition sometimes straying towards telling you what SHOULD have happened rather than what DID happen. But Mike's book is different. This is the story of what it's all about being an astronaut: nuts and bolts, human weaknesses, bureaucracy, chauvanism, fear, elation, reality. But above all the need to fly into space. If you were to read only one astronaut biography, then this should be it. The Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens Deborah Cadbury Paperback HarperPerennial 07 August, 2006 Amazon price*: £5.99 (list price £7.99) Used price*: £1.22 More Info & Buy Online Review: Get the physics right! (3/5) I found that the reading and enjoyment of this book somewhat marred by the type of basic A level physics mistakes commonly made by my students when they do not consider the situation carefully. For example the centripetal force IS the force of gravity on the satellite or capsule, not just equal to it. Circular motion relies on unbalanced forces, in this case the centripetal force to accelerate the capsule towards the centre of the Earth; there is no outward force to be balanced and forces are not balanced by speed! I would have thought that these errors should have been spotted by the scientific proof-readers. The author undoubtedly has far greater literary skills than I, but in a science/technology based book the physics has to be correct. By all means read this book, it is paced well and as a story there is much to commend it. Review: Mills and Boon space history (2/5) I was really looking forward to this book, but it is a big disappointment. I expect a hardback book of a TV series to be well illustrated, particularly if the BBC is involved, but there are very few pictures and those included are very well known. In particular, there is no photo of the Russian N-1 moon rocket, a major omission in a book on this subject surely. The book does not appear to have been type set properly (or proof read properly?), because many, many words have extra hyphens inserted in them for no apparent reason, sometimes several on one page. The language is, er, florid, purple, hyperbolic and more suited to a Mills and Boon bodice ripper than a serious biography. Try "... the wind dispersing their treasonable words into the vast Nordic sky". Way over the top, often. Underneath all this is a good story, and some good information on von Braun and Korelev - which is why I gave it 2 stars. If this style is what you like add one star, if you are hoping for a serious history of the space race, subtract two. Review: race to space (4/5) Written to accompany the bbc series of the same name, this is a non fiction book that relates the story of the american and russian race to be furthest ahead with their space programme. Starting at the end of the second world war and ending with the first moon landing, it tells the story by focussing on the two chief designers, von braun in america and korolev in russia. Having seen and liked the tv series I thought this would just be a retread of that and I wouldn't get anything else out of it, but it turned to be quite an engrossing read. The style of the writing is good enough to make this work as a book in it's own right, rather than just a transcript of the tv show. An enjoyable and engrossing read. We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race Tom Stafford, Michael Cassutt Paperback Smithsonian Books March, 2004 Amazon price*: £8.54 (list price £8.54) Used price*: £2.43 More Info & Buy Online Review: I liked this book. (5/5) Goodness knows how Mike Cassutt managed to make such a great book out of a tough subject. Stafford is notoriously tight-lipped about his personal life, considered a little vain and occasionally arrogant. But here is a really good read about some amazing moments in history. Bravo Cassutt!!!! Review: It Sure Captured My Imagination (5/5) Ask any American to name ten pioneering U.S. astronauts and it's quite unlikely they would include the name of Tom Stafford. Yet here is a man who was chosen in NASA's second group of astronauts, who flew two incredible Gemini missions, operated a lunar module to within a few miles of the lunar surface, and became a crew member on the historic ASTP mission, in which Soviet and American spacefarers shook hands in space. And that is just his spaceflight career. There are many layers to General Tom Stafford, and this book explores them all. I will also add that this was a greatly-anticipated book in the space community; co-author Michael Cassutt had earlier hunkered down with Deke Slayton and written a truly superb book about the man, his life and career. Undoubtedly a winner, and an intriguing book about a man whose influence is still being felt at NASA and the upper echelon of spaceflight administration; so highly thought of that he was part of the Columbia accident investigation and review board after the loss of that shuttle in 2003. This is a seriously good book about a true spaceflight pioneer, and a man who, while he might slip under the radar of most Americans, is an absolute legend of flight beyond our planet. Both authors are to be congratulated on creating this stirring and highly-recommended book. Way of the Explorer, Revised Edition: An Apollo Astronaut's Journey Through the Material and Mystical Worlds Edgar, PhD Mitchell, Dwight Williams Paperback New Page Books 28 February, 2008 Amazon price*: £10.99 (list price £11.99) Used price*: £5.72 More Info & Buy Online Review: Great reading for deep thinkers (5/5) Dr. Mitchell's spiritual/scientific quest is utterly fascinating. He does an excellent job of uniting the two realms in a way that avoids the narrow scope of rationalism while eschewing the subjective excesses of much New Age thinking. What he gives the reader is nothing less than a paradigm that might help explain how life, mind, and spirit are cosmic phenomena with far more potential than we realize. Just plain excellent! Review: Did we really go? (5/5) Did man really go to the moon? In view of so very many unanswered questions concerning our moon trips, I feel compelled to ask that question. I wonder, did "we" really go? Review: Interesting (3/5) Dr. Mitchell, astronaut and founder of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, discusses his mystical experience in space and tells about the ESP experiments that he performed while in transit to the moon as well as his theories about the nature of human consciousness. He tells of how he became convinced of the realities of paranormal events and tries to explain these events by rejecting the sacred cow of epiphenomenalism by intuiting that human consciousness is an integral part of the structure of the universe. Not always completley convincing, but always intensely interesting. This is an example of a man who refuses to be hemmed in by traditional ideas of what science should be. Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century and Beyond (Visions of Science) Michio Kaku Hardcover Oxford University Press 12 March, 1998 Used price*: £4.75 More Info & Buy Online Review: Read the future today! (4/5) In-depth enough to get your teeth into, but not too complex as to exclude the majority. The near future (up to 2020) is predicted with a fair amount of certainty - and is quite believable, with the mid-future (up to 2050) and longer-term future (up to 2200) also explained with rational and justifiable arguments. The author has enlisted the minds of a great many people at the top of their fields and as such lends credibility to the book. Very thought-inspiring. Review: Almost an almanac of 21st century science!? (4/5) In content it is something anyone could have written, knowing a bit about present science affairs and doing a bit of research. But who better than a well-respected scientist! It collates information from brains around all corners of the world, which founds some validity in the predictions. The book is written simply (i.e. for an educated layman) and even the sometimes laborious facts, somehow seem to encourage enthusiasm towards the next century. One to keep until 2020 (at least) to see whether these crystal-ball visions really do come true! One Small Step?: The Great Moon Hoax and the Race to Dominate Earth from Space Gerhard Wisnewski, Johanna Collis Paperback Clairview Books 12 November, 2007 Amazon price*: £9.89 (list price £14.99) Used price*: £7.99 More Info & Buy Online Review: Read before you dismiss... (5/5) Before labelling this with the lazy dismissive tag of 'conspiracy theory', take another look. Wisnewski presents reams of serious research and evidence, beginning with the Russians and only later studying the Apollo missions. This book will surprise you and, perhaps, open your eyes... Don't miss! Review: Very well researched, evidence-based and thoroughly readable (5/5) This is a far better book than detractors will want you to believe. A lot of vested interests do not want you reading this! It is far better than the very sketchy efforts of Phillippe Lheureux which I found unconvincing and rambling. This is a great book which raises many interesting questions, but does so carefully and methodically. The author brings up much interesting data which points to fakery. He examines the historical and political context of the whole Apollo programme which is significant. It is not as one-sided as you may expect - he is in places writing as if he is almost hoping that the detailed satellite imagery which may be possible in the future (to identify accurately the lunar "junk" left from the missions) may prove him wrong - so he is not stating his case dogmatically, instead presenting much salient evidence which points to the lunar landings being the hoax of the century simply because there are so many holes in the official accounts, so many omissions, errors, inaccuracies, inexplicable oddities and coincidences as to make the whole affair too suspicious to go unchalleneged by any reasonably minded thinking person. Highly recommended, and very readable, this book should be compulsory reading for every person who still subscribes unquestioningly to the great Moon Myth. Keep an open mind! We all WANT to believe in fairy tales, it is human nature after all, but occasionally a jolt back to reality is not a bad thing. Don't believe the naysayers - this is a very good piece of work. DARK MOON : Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers: Apollo and the Whistle-blowers David S, ARPS, Percy Paperback Aulis Publishers 1999 Amazon price*: £11.89 (list price £16.99) Used price*: £3.99 More Info & Buy Online Review: Dark Moon is a wild fantasy (1/5) Dark Moon does not reflect reality. Many of the pictures I recognise from NASA archives have been cropped to eliminate 'problems' for the author. No real experts have been used for it. It jumps from Apollo to Egyptian Pyramids to Crop Circles to Hitler without effort. I was surprised not to find a conspiricy in there about Elvis still living somewhere next door to Hitler on an uncharted island called Atlantis so that in turn will prove that the Flat Earth Society was right after all. I only wanted to purchase this to give me amunition to show school children how Not To Do Science! You will only end up embarrassing yourself as this author has done. Review: An absurd work of pure fantasy (1/5) If Amazon had a 'no star' rating Dark Moon would get it. This book is an absurd work of fantasy. The 'science' is laughable - so laughable and just plain wrong that it makes the book highly entertaining. Conspiracy theorists, X-files addicts and numerologists will love it. Read it, have a good laugh, and forget it. Review: Absolute Garbage! (1/5) I received a copy of "Dark Moon" directly from the authors as I gave David Percy and his assistant a tour of the Goldstone tracking facility and was interviewed on camera by David in December of 1997. I worked at the Goldstone Manned Space Flight Network station during all Apollo missions and was an eyewitness to those events. However this book is filled with half-truths and total fabrications about the Apollo program. It will only be of interest to people who like things about "Area 51," "Crop Circles," Roswell "UFO's" and other weird "happenings." Anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of photography and physics can see through the so-called "facts" presented in this fabrication. It should be considered a work of fiction instead of an independent view of a historic event. Bill Wood, Retired Tracking Systems Engineer, Barstow, CA Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration Paul Gilster Hardcover Springer-Verlag New York Inc. June, 2004 Amazon price*: £12.68 (list price £12.60) Used price*: £12.05 More Info & Buy Online Orbit: NASA Astronauts Photograph the Earth Jay Apt Paperback National Geographic Books 01 January, 2004 Amazon price*: £11.04 (list price £16.99) Used price*: £1.82 More Info & Buy Online Review: High flyers! (5/5) Shuttle astronaut Jay Apt, together with scientists Michael Helfert and Justin Wilkinson, has put together a wonderful book of photographs under the auspices of National Geographic, Orbit. These are all photographs taken by astronauts from the space shuttle while in orbit (with a few exceptions, historically significant photographs from moon circlings and early trips into space). Photography, interestingly enough, is never really scheduled as a shuttle activity, but rather done 'in between' the other assignments. The photographs included in this book do not come from special 'space' cameras, but rather from regular hand-held, off-the-shelf cameras that astronauts took with them. The shuttle offers a unique platform for photography, to say the least. It has 11 different windows, and as the shuttle orbits in what one might consider an upside-down position, the windows and cargo-bay with doors open are almost always facing the earth. Astronauts take lots of film with them, and record many phenomena. This book is divided geographically, by earth region: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific, Middle and South America, and North America. There is also a special section on the Aurora, with dazzling photographs of things that look right out of Star Trek! The images include daytime and nighttime views, calm views and stormy views. One can see hurricanes and cyclones from high above, stretching their entire lengths across great portions of the globe. One can see the difference lighting makes in an urban area at night, the way terrain and human-engineering connect, and how much of the world seems to remain unspoilt when viewed from a distance of even a few hundred miles away. This is a remarkable book, full of glorious photographs of the 'home world', a great coffee-table book, a great gift, and a great guide of inspiration for younger readers who might be interested in science, geography, or even becoming an astronaut. Review: Lavishly Produced coffee table book (4/5) Obviously a work of love although, to be honest, some of the pictures do get a bit "samey" after a while. There are some stunning shots here though and the background information is fascinating (if typically over-the-top in grand "God bless America" style). Those familiar with the Europe vs US clashes over US pollution emissions a year or so ago or the US car industry will laugh at loud at such gems as "The United States has the best environmental record in the world". Well worth the money, despite the naivity of some of the words. Review: Most beautiful pictures about most beautiful planet! (5/5) I ordered this book form Amazon and then I recieve it, I saw very beatuful book with great photos about the planet there we live. It's such joy to see that we haven't killed this planet (jet) and astronauts have oportunity to picture this beautiful view. Let's keep it that way...