Riding Rockets
The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut
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4.8 • 97개의 평가
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- US$14.99
출판사 설명
NASA astronaut Mike Mullane delivers a hilariously candid and often raw astronaut memoir of life in the Space Shuttle era. Selected in 1978 as part of the groundbreaking astronaut class—the first to include women—Mullane exposes the unfiltered reality behind the heroic veneer of NASA.
His stories bounce between bawdy military-flyboy antics, interactions with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists, and the unforgiving bureaucracy of NASA leadership. Mullane pulls no punches: from drinking games at mission briefings to the embarrassing logistics of urinary-collection devices, no detail is too small or too irreverent.
He recounts the emotional highs of launch and the sublime beauty of orbit, and the heartbreak of losing four crewmates in the Challenger disaster. His tough critique of NASA’s culture—especially its sexist undercurrents and managerial ineptitude—makes this more than a spaceflight chronicle; it’s a cultural memoir of human spaceflight.
With uproarious humor, brutal honesty, and emotional depth, Riding Rockets offers an unforgettable look into the life of an astronaut: the risks, the camaraderie, the mistakes, and the moments of awe that define a generation of space explorers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With a testosterone-fueled swagger and a keen eye for particulars, Mullane takes readers into the high-intensity, high-stress world of the shuttle astronaut in this rough-hewn yet charming yarn of low-rent antics, bureaucratic insanity and transcendent beauty. Mullane opens this tale face down on a doctor's table awaiting a colorectal exam that will determine his fitness for astronaut training. "I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses," he writes, setting the tone for the crude and often hilarious story that follows. Chosen as a trainee in 1978, Mullane, a Vietnam vet, quickly finds himself at odds with the buttoned-up post-Apollo NASA world of scientists, technocrats and civilian astronauts he describes as "tree-huggers, dolphin friendly fish eaters, vegetarians, and subscribers to the New York Times." He holds female astronauts in special disregard, though he later grudgingly acknowledges the achievement and heroism of both the civilians and women. The book hits its stride with Mullane's space adventures: a difficult takeoff, the shift into zero gravity, his first view of the Earth from space: "To say the view was overwhelmingly beautiful would be an insult to God."
사용자 리뷰
Along for the ride
Great story and writing! A glimpse into one of my five possible career dreams! Thank you Col Mullane for writing your NASA journey in vivid prose! gsp
Great insight to the shuttle program
Mike's storytelling isn't bashful and it's great to read the stuff no one else will tell you about the shuttle program. Great book; first book I've read in years.
Exceptional, funny and beautifully written!
Mike Mullane had me from the first sentence of this book! I laughed, I marveled, and I mourned along with him as he navigated his way through 3 Shuttle flights and suffered the loss of friends along the way (in Challenger). He captured the spirit, humor and soul of the military aviator. Loved this book from beginning to end.