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| In the Shadow of the Moon
ISBN: 9780803209848
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / University of Nebraska Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: Space race; Astronautics; Space flight to the moon.;
The Gemini program has always been NASA's quiet, superachieving middle child, overshadowed by the space cowboys of the Mercury years and Apollo's lunar prospectors. French, an executive at Sally Ride Science, and Burgess, author of Fallen Astronauts, chronicle the missions on which American astronauts learned how to live in space for more than a few hours; steer a spacecraft around the Earth at almost 20,000 miles an hour; rendezvous with a companion ship; and navigate to another world and return safely. The authors relate that during the early Gemini missions, in the mid-'60s, several crews came close to ending in tragedy before NASA had the bright idea to have Buzz Aldrin practice in a Baltimore swimming pool for the final flight, Gemini 12. The book also covers the Apollo program and the U.S.S.R.'s simultaneous space efforts. Although the authors interviewed surviving astronauts, family members and NASA staff for some fresh material, space aficionados will know most of this saga by heart. For young readers born decades after man last walked on the moon, this is a readable introduction to the first years of America's leap into space. Illus. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Francis French is the former director of events for Sally Ride Science, and the current director of education at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. Colin Burgess is a former flight service director with Qantas Airways and the author of many books on spaceflight, including Fallen Astronauts: Heroes Who Died Reaching for the Moon , available in a Bison Books edition. He is the coauthor with Francis French of Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961--1965 (Nebraska 2007). A NASA astronaut from 1963 to 1971, Walter Cunningham was a crew member on the first manned Apollo flight. |
