Product Description

Selected as a Mission Specialist in 1978 in the first group of shuttle astronauts, Mike Mullane completed three missions and logged 356 hours aboard the Discovery and Atlantis shuttles. It was a dream come true. As a boy, Mullane could only read about space travel in science fiction, but the launch of Sputnik changed all that. Space flight became a possible dream and Mike Mullane set out to make it come true. In this absorbing memoir, Mullane gives the first-ever look into the often hilarious, sometime volatile dynamics of space shuttle astronauts - a class that included Vietnam War veterans, feminists, and propeller-headed scientists. With unprecedented candour, Mullane describes the chilling fear and unparalleled joy of space flight. As his career centred around the Challenger disaster, Mullane also recounts the heartache of burying his friends and colleagues. And he pulls no punches as he reveals the ins and outs of NASA, frank in his criticisms of the agency. A blast from start to finish, Riding Rockets is a straight-from-the-gut account of what it means to be an astronaut, just in time for this latest generation of stargazers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53716 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Review
"Space-age America in all its glory and folly as seen through the eyes of a remarkable writer who has brilliantly captured the triumphant and tragic years of the space shuttle era. "Riding Rockets" soars."

-- Homer Hickam, author of "Rocket Boys"

Customer Reviews

the Bill Bryson of space travel
I've been waiting for this book since I was a kid watching the first landing on the Moon on TV. It is something completely different from what I read till now about the space program. To say that Mike Mullane is the Bill Bryson of space travel is to underestimate him. You will not only appreciate the story, the inside view on the US space program (including the permanent mismanagement). You will also learn about a real dream love: the one with his wife, Donna. What is really outstanding in Mike is the chase for the "ultimate honesty". He constantly refuse the "politically correct" approach and goes straigth to the core of our relations to space travels, dreams, technology, relation with... women, with his boss and with... the girl of his dream, in this case another Astronaut tragically dead in the Challenger accident. The last pages in particular are surprisingly good and poetic. I would never expect something like that from a funny book like this.

Thanks, Mike, for your honesty.

The Best Astronaut Autobiography Ever!
This is a wonderful book.
The next nearest 'Deke', is very good.
Mike Mullane pulls out all of the stops. If I have a criticism it could be that he almost seems to push himself as definitely *not* the NASA puppet. Well, I'm sure he's not.
I think this is an honest work, Mullane's references to (for example) Judith Resnik really weighed on my heart. I hadn't shed a tear for Challenger for a long time.
There's fascinating stuff about how Mullane learns how not to be a sexist pig (read it!), how he learned how wonderful his wife is. There's a lot about the terror of a shuttle launch, (Space Truck? Dangerous experimental spaceplane?), pointing out the problems of that vehicle and management difficulties.
Just read it. There are amazingly honest references to emotional issues. Physiological issues (how do you pee (etc)in space?), what happens when the space toilet breaks?

This is good. I've read loads of space-related bios and they often seem full of irrelevent 'pre-space' detail. The 'pre-space' detail here is fascinating and is very relevant to what comes
later. 10/10.

Nic

A no holds barred account of 80s NASA
I bought this as i wanted to know all about spaceflight and the workings of NASA from someone who had actually been there and i got just that despite the personality of the author.

Mullane recounts his life before NASA, his yearnings for space and then all his time at NASA. His intense enthusiasm for space drives the narrative. He gives a gritty and honest view of what it was like to work at NASA including internal politics and competition for flight places. Specifically his detail on waiting to fly, sitting on the launch pad and being in space was the part i was most excited to read.

However it does come across immediately that Mullane is (and freely admits) a chauvinist, extremely childish and living up to a gung-ho, yee-ha 'Top Gun' stereotype of American fighter pilots. The regular comments and jokes about his other colleagues, pranks and attitude to the world were really tiresome and quite shocking in places. This continues throughout and although doesn't stop this from being a great read is a continual annoyance.