The recent SpaceX commercial crew mission offered a look at the future of mission control, or at least the concept of mission control. There was the traditional NASA Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, overseeing the operations of the International Space Station. There was also, though, SpaceX’s own mission control center at its Hawthorne, California, headquarters, which handled the Crew Dragon itself. During their trip to the station in May, and back home in August, the NASA astronauts on the spacecraft communicated directly with the SpaceX mission control rather than with JSC.

That resulted in some differences, superficial and more significant. SpaceX’s mission control, long used for cargo Dragon missions, has glass walls so that employees could watch, and cheer. The Crew Dragon astronauts spoke not with a fellow astronaut servicing as Capcom but instead a SpaceX “crew operations responsible engineer,” or CORE. Yet there were many more similarities, including the rigor involved with handling operations of a crewed spacecraft, one recounted by longtime NASA flight director Paul Dye in Shuttle, Houston.

Dye came to JSC near the beginning of shuttle missions as a co-op student, unsure if he wanted to pursue a career in the space program or in aviation. His experience led him to go with space, and he soon joined JSC on a full-time basis, ascending through the flight controller ranks before selected as a flight director in 1993, working on that role through the final shuttle mission in 2011.

His book is partially a story of that career, one filled with anecdotes from his time both in Mission Control and other assignments, such as extensive time in Russia during the 1990s supporting the Shuttle-Mir program and learning to work with Russian counterparts. (A more difficult assignment, he suggests, was being sent to Washington in the early 1990s to support space station planning: “I’m sorry, there really isn’t any kind of work that I enjoy that is actually done there,” he said of his brief time inside the Beltway.)

He also uses the book to examine what it takes to be successful in the high-stakes world of human spaceflight, based on his decades of experience in JSC’s Mission Control. One chapter looks at a relatively minor incident on a shuttle mission—an antenna that initially failed to properly retract at the end of a radar mapping mission two decades ago—as a way of examining how missions are planned and problems addressed. Another chapter recounts activities in Mission Control as a major problem unfolds on a shuttle mission, only to find it’s just one of many simulations that controllers go through as part of training.

There is, throughout the book, a reverence for Mission Control that for Dye dates back to the first time he stepped into the control center while still a co-op student: “Many have compared it to stepping into a cathedral, and that feeling was palpable; this was a place where good things could—and did—happen.” But, later in the book, he notes that Mission Control “was not just awe-inspiring, it was a fun place to be,” reserving a chapter for some of the more humorous anecdotes from his time there.

In the book’s final chapters, Dye distills some of the wisdom from his time in Mission Control, with advice like “the first answer is always wrong” and “never make the right decision too soon,” as well as broader insights about leadership. He regrets the retirement of the shuttle primarily because it leaves us without the ability to return large payloads from space. But, he says he supports the new commercial crew vehicles even if they lack that capability to return large payloads: “Commercialization is a good thing, and if that is where the leaders go with their visions, then we will follow—and ride their ships off the planet.”

Government or commercial, capsule or shuttle, crewed spaceflight require the support of a mission control to ensure a safe mission. Wherever that mission control may be located and however it looks, it requires the same rigor and attention to detail described in Dye’s book to ensure success.

What a great page-turner! As a shuttle buff, I know a lot about the STS itself. But this is the first in-depth look at how mission control works. I loved it..

4 stars

Shuttle, Houston captured my attention from the first page. The intro set the scene and the prelude had me on the edge of my seat (I won’t say more - spoilers!). Dye reminds us of the grandeur, the giant leap, that was the Space Shuttle. Mechanically, electronically, and aerodynamically, it was more complex than Apollo.

I liked that Dye started off by acknowledging that he was in the right place at the right time to get his job - NASA was getting ready to launch the Space Shuttle and they needed to staff up. He was in the early rounds and got to work with and train from legends like Gene Krantz. He establishes his creds (30-year career, working with Krantz!) and demonstrates his humility all the while. Given the magnitude of what NASA employees accomplish, they can get big heads - i always appreciate these types of books starting out with a dose of humility.

Some chapters go deeeep into specific missions. Those chapters nearly made my eyes glaze over and I have a high tolerance for NASA nerdery (that’s not a word okay I know). I loved the chapters on life in mission control. Having reading Gene Krantz’s book, it’s so cool to hear about the traditions he started from someone who picked up the torch.

In closing, Dye takes a strong stance on the commercial space program and NASA management. It’s probably more impactful for industry professionals, but I still enjoyed hearing his POV on the direction of the agency.

Overall, Shuttle, Houston is less layman friendly than other NASA memoirs I’ve read, but I still enjoyed it tremendously. If, like me, you hunger to gobble up all things space related, this is absolutely a must read. For the casual fan, be prepared to skip past a chapter if it gets too in the weeds.

Thanks to Paul Dye, Hachette Books, and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

I finally got this book on my reading device. It was a pleasure.

You must overcome the initial chapters, in which Paul was setting a certain tone of the book. Using a lot of acronyms and abbreviations, he pretty much tells the story of a mission. Explaining these abbreviations once helps, but their sheer number are hard to memorize, so that some of the story gets lost.

After the first few chapters though, the lingo gets less, and the stories more interesting. Whatever your mission is, you learn how to plan and how to execute. You learn principles of decision making and leadership. In the abstract, there are a lot of leadership trades or project management skills one can learn from the book and apply in their personal lives.

4 stars, because of the rough start, but still a smooth flight and solid landing.

Fascinating. This book is from a guy that started in NASA in the era right after Apollo and seemingly left right as SpaceX and the other private space agencies were finding their first successes. It is highly technical, yet also very approachable - Dye actively tries to explain as much of his "NASA-speak" (his term) as possible while not getting bogged down in too many details. This covers the entirety of his 40 ish years in NASA, from his first days as a co-op student through his last years planning the recovery missions should a Shuttle be stranded in space in the years after the Columbia disaster. Great insight and sometimes hilarious stories, though it ultimately suffers from the same bad taste of an ending that soured Kranz's Failure Is Not An Option. In its final chapter, it more often comes across as a bitter old man not understanding the new dynamics of the agency he helped mold, rather than as someone truly hopeful for the future of space exploration and what the promise of the new and immediately future eras. Still, a truly worthy read from one of the people who doesn't have the name recognition of a Kranz or a Chris Kraft, but who was arguably just as important in getting NASA to where it is today. Very much recommeded.

This seemed to be well written but there were a lot of technical terms and acronyms tossed out at you. The author did explain each initially but there were so many in continual use it got to feel like a foreign language. I felt overwhelmed and couldn't finish it.

I received a free e-galley from netgalley.com.

Shuttle, Houston is quite a story as the reader gets to learn about the space program from the inside out. Most if it is fascinating, but I found the first chapters to be technologically above my head. They are very detailed about the mechanics of how things work. However, once I got past that part of the book, it was much easier to follow.

We are provided a lot of information that many of those outside of the space program do not know. The incredible amount of knowledge that a Flight Director must have in his head and at his fingertips is mindboggling. The ability to access and apply what he knows on a moments notice can be critical to the success of a mission. We learn about the difference in function between the Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center, with work at JSC being the focus of Shuttle, Houston.

The reader learns about our collaboration on the space program with Russia. For some reason I did not remember that Norm Thagard was the first American astronaut to ride on Mir (I had friends who went to school with him). I was amused by the anecdotal story of June Lockhart’s visit to the space center. However, one of the most interesting chapters comes at the end when Paul Dye reflects on how and why the changes in the U.S. space program have occurred.

As challenging as I found the first few chapters, this was a great way to learn about the space
program from an insider’s point of view.

I requested an advance copy of this book from Netgalley.com because I have been fascinated by space flight for most of my life. It didn’t hurt that one of the early astronauts lived within shouting distance of my childhood home (I did not know him) when he was selected. There was no promise of a positive review and any opinion shared here is strictly my own.