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Space Exploration

By Ginger Wentrcek

With the approaching 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, there is a renewed interest in America's space program. To be able to put a human into space, the United States space program progressed from deploying satellites, to launching Ham, a chimpanzee, then man, Alan Shepard, followed by the Gemini and Apollo programs. Skylab, an early American space station, and Mir, a Russian space station, were also in the lineup. While mankind has not been back to the moon, the International Space Station is currently the home of a select few astronauts circling Earth. Getting brave men and women into space and back, as well as the time they spent on their expeditions, have been the subjects of numerous books.

Common Theme - Danger

To the public watching the televised launches, they appeared to be exciting but fairly safe, with dangers kept to a minimum. The horrific loss of lives of astronauts assigned to Apollo 1, Space Shuttle Challenger (STS-51L), and Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107) reminded us just how unsafe being jettisoned into space and returning can be. A majority of the authors of the books below reminded the readers that the astronauts were just about as safe as a little kid playing with a match and a stick of dynamite. Each book offered glimpses of our space program that made me wonder how we, the public, came to view each launch as something, for lack of a better word, ordinary - just another launch. The American public really had little knowledge about the true dangers of space flight.

Endurance by Astronaut Scott Kelly

When Scott Kelly's book, Endurance, was published, I rushed down to the bookstore the day it was available and purchased a copy. Packed with exciting and unimaginable facts about his year aboard the International Space Station, it was hard to put the book down, making me want to read more about the space program when I finished the book.

Half Price Book Store is a great source for books that will not break the bank so a trip to the store was in order. Returning home with about eight books that covered the Mercury program to the current International Space Station, each one provided a narrative from the astronaut's view that gave extra dimension to understanding how the U.S. space program was built from the ground up. After finishing those books, more visits to Half Price Book Store and orders from Amazon yielded more reading material, each one as interesting as the one before it.

Autographed book
Inside book jacket blurred for copyright protection
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Back of the card shown to the left
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Off the Planet Invoice
Name and home address blurred for privacy reasons
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Summary

I knew the space program was extremely dangerous, but reading about the little known details, written in many cases by the astronauts themselves, gave new meaning to just how perilous their jobs actually were - and still are. Closing the last page of each volume reiterated the fact that the lives of these brave pioneers hung by the thinnest string from the countdown to its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean or its hard landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan in central Asia.

Book Loans

Members of the Brazos Valley Astronomy Club are welcome to borrow any book on the list. I have read each of them and every page of every book is well worth the time it takes to read. Contact me (Ginger) via email or phone and I will be happy to loan any of them to you.