Go, Flight!

I would guess that anyone who is attracted to this title has already read most of the previous books, and saw most of the movies and documentaries, on the subject. And since many of them were very well done, there isn’t a lot of new ground for Rich Houston and Milt Helfin to cover. In my case, I would estimate that less than 10% of the material in this book was new to me. So, the question becomes “Is another telling of the story, and a small amount of new information, worth the effort to read the book”.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* It is hard to miss with this material, but Houston and Helfin do a great job telling the story. They concentrate more on the personalities and relationships that previous Apollo books have, and that material was very interesting. But even after 45 years, NASA jealously guards it secrets, and I suspect most of the main characters will take the secrets of interpersonal conflicts to the grave.

* The authors fill in a few gaps that I have never been able to understand from my previous reading. For example, while John Aaron’s “SCE to AUX” call has gone down in history among science-geeks, this book was the first one that actually described the circuitry in enough detail (I am an electrical engineer) that I understood what actually happened, and how it was possible for Aaron to make such a call. I would never think myself capable of making that call, but at least now I understand his logic.

* There were a number of those little details that most space-junkies eat up. I had never heard the story before of faked EKG logs being fed into the simulations, just to see if the flight surgeons were awake. Also, it was amazing how many of the “miracles” of Apollo 13 were things that NASA had already thought about years before. Among these are the legendary CO2 cannister jury-rigging of square canisters and round containers.

=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* The narrative can get a little choppy, with the plot line jumping between multiple missions, crews, astronauts and discussions.

* I would have liked to see either more of less detail about post-Apollo NASA missions such as the Space Shuttle and Apollo/Soyuz. As it was there was just enough information to pique your interest, but not enough to actually develop what was happening.

=== Summary ===

I don’t think this is the end-all book about Apollo, but it is a credible look at the events of that time. For us space-nerds, much of the material is old, but there was enough information to hold my interest and make the book a worthwhile read.

If you liked the biographies of Chris Kraft and Gene Kranz, you will love this book. The book attempts to tell the stories of the people who were part of Mission Control, but were never featured in a book or movie. You will get to hear from some of the more recognized MC guys like Glenn Lunney, Sy Liebergot and John Aaron; but you will also get to know more of the others who were there as well. The authors do a good job at trying to include the stories of as many of these people as possible. You really get a feel for how the whole MC group was a team, how everyone worked together and how MC was run successfully. The main narrative of the book follows the Gemini and Apollo missions controlled from Houston. Looking at some of these missions from the perspective of the MC really changes how you view some of these missions. The book naturally covers the Apollo 13 mission with a lot of detail. Reading this section was extremely interesting. I got chills a few times during this part, and then I had to immediately watch the Apollo 13 movie again. The book also gives you the story from inside MC during the final launch of Challenger. This part is very emotional, and you can just feel the emotions in that room as you read. I might have given this a four star rating because several of the chapters were not organized very well. They were still readable, but the lack of organization was a bit annoying. I went with 5 stars because it was an amazing read and an important new work to add to the Spaceflight bookshelf. Overall, I’m very glad this story was written. As is noted in the book, several of the people featured in this book have passed away. I think it is incredibly important to record who they were and what they did to contribute. While the book doesn’t cover everyone that worked in MC, it tells enough of the group’s story that you leave with tremendous respect for anyone who was a part of it.

This book is really informative. I love the history of things so was really happy to have a chance to see inside Mission Control

Another great addition form the University of Nebraska Press space history series. Great to see the back room boys take centre stage