I love books about space. And I’m not just talking about fantasy like Andy Weir’s The Martian or The New Dark Ages. Colony” by Max Kidruk. I mean popular science publications or memoirs of astronauts. At one time, I was impressed by “The Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” by Chris Hadfield, and a year ago I shared very pleasant impressions of the book “Apollo-8. The Story of the First Flight to the Moon” by Jeffrey Kluger.

“Horses on a shuttle”

469 hryvnias

Pros:

a wonderful story that does not let go until the end and makes you turn pages one after another; many interesting facts and details from the lives and flights of astronauts; the book reveals the details of the Space Shuttle program and will be interesting for all space fans; a good quality edition with a bright cover and a series of archival photographs

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Cons:

a lot of technical terminology from space and aviation, abbreviations and acronyms, which sometimes makes it difficult to read; some humor “below the belt” and sexism (in which the author sincerely admits), which some readers may not like

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9.5/10

Estimated by ITC.ua

The Bearded Tamarin publishing house, founded by Max Kidruk and his wife Tatyana, has the Corvus series. In it, they publish books about space and various sciences related to it. I read just such a novel by American astronaut Mike Mullane. Its full title is “Riding the Shuttle: Outrageous Stories of a Space Shuttle Astronaut” and it’s a very cool book that I immediately recommend to everyone. Well, you know where to look for details.

“Riding the Shuttle: Outrageous Stories of a Space Shuttle Astronaut” / Riding Rockets:

Author Mike Mullane
Translator Yaroslav Pank
Publishing house Bearded Tamarin
language Ukrainian
Number of pages 528
Cover solid
Year of publication 2023
Size 135×210 mm
Site tamarinbooks.com

Mike Mullane dreamed of going into space since childhood, and although he served in the Air Force and flew airplanes, he was not a pilot, so he had no chance to fulfill his dream. Only pilots were taken into the Apollo space program, but the USA first flew to the moon (read the above-mentioned “Apollo-8. The history of the first flight to the moon”), and then landed people there twice, so it was closed, because everything that was planned had already been , they did and the time of these rockets has passed.

The Space Shuttle program began – flights on experimental reusable space shuttles that did not have a full-fledged ejection system (it was only in the first two-crew test flights, and then it was removed, but then they made silly parachutes for astronauts). That is, the crew members had no chance to escape at all, if the launch or landing did not go according to plan.

NASA’s new space program was the most expensive in history to transport cargo into Earth orbit. Space in the shuttle was enough not only for pilots, but also for technicians and scientists, so the chance to fly into space was now not only for pilots, but also for civilian scientists. Mike Mullane was given a chance and he took it.

The author has been in space three times, and two of the three missions were classified and still largely remain so. Therefore, Mike Mullane could tell almost nothing about them, but this does not affect the interest of the book at all. Because even this story of the life of this astronaut is incredible. Not only did he visit almost all corners of the world, he served in Vietnam and defended peace as part of NATO from the USSR. This person with poor eyesight received the right to see the Earth from the window of the space shuttle three times and thereby photograph his name in the history of space travel.

Mike Mullane was a man with his weaknesses and faults, adventures and problems. The author tells a lot about them and does it with humor and frankness characteristic of an experienced person of his age, who looks at himself through the prism of the years he has lived.

Thus, the author admits to ignorance about women and sexism. He says that he grew up in America in the 50s and had zero experience with women. And then he went to the military academy, where he became more courageous and stronger, but this further distorted his attitude and perception of women. Therefore, at the beginning of the Space Shuttle program, Mike Mullane and most of the military who were in it were prejudiced not only against non-military astronaut candidates, but even more so against the women who were among them. It took years for the author and his colleagues to understand that not only military astronauts can be brave, intelligent and professional.

And Mike befriended a woman. Her name was Judith Resnick and she was in the author’s crew on his first space voyage. And for the second time, she flew into space earlier than Mike Mullane, which once again proved to the author her professionalism and intelligence. But it was the “Challenger” on which the woman and the rest of the crew died. For the author and other astronauts, the 1986 disaster was a serious psychological trauma, because one of them could have been in their place.

In general, stress and psychological problems were constant guests in the lives of astronauts and their families. The author pays a lot of attention to this, shares his own feelings and fatal thoughts, fear and worries for his family if he dies.

A significant part of this stress was added by George Abbey, a legendary astronaut during the Apollo program and later one of the heads of NASA, who assigned people to the mission. Mike Mullane talks about how great of an astronaut Abby was and how bad of a manager. He did not communicate with subordinates at all, and most importantly, they did not know who and by what criteria he would select the next mission. Therefore, there was always fierce competition among the candidates, which greatly demoralized them.

The space shuttles themselves did not improve this condition. Although they were wonderful and technically impressive, they were in fact the most dangerous things on which people once flew into space. In his book, Mike Mullane not only harshly criticizes NASA management and politicians at the time, but also talks about the many problems with the shuttles on literally every mission.

The author directly blames them for the Challenger and Columbia disasters. He himself and all his colleagues could die more than once in their missions and increase the number of victims. And in one of the author’s three missions, they were literally lucky not to die, but this problem later became the reason for the destruction of “Columbia”.

“Riding the Shuttle” is not only about the mortal dangers and psychological problems of astronauts. It is also a vivid, powerful, and most importantly, very funny story of a man who understood and admitted all his mistakes. She likes to joke, she does it perfectly and at the right moments.

Mike Mullane’s jokes may sometimes seem too vulgar and frank to some, but because of them, he shows himself even more as a simple guy. He went through incredible trials and tribulations, threw up in airplane cockpits, suffered from an erection in space, was prejudiced against women, almost cheated on his wife and put his career first, not his family. This proves once again that astronauts are people like us, they just have the courage and fortitude to do things that you and I would never dream of doing.

Conclusion:

Aboard the Shuttle is one of the best space exploration books I’ve read. This is a powerful, moving story of the real life of astronauts. This is a book about courage and death, about the power of knowledge and human problems that affect multibillion-dollar projects, destroy lives or give a chance to realize a cherished dream. This is an interesting story about an ordinary guy who had the guts to become an astronaut. He likes to joke and does not hide his humanity and flaws from the reader. But this is what makes her sincere and so cool.

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