Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #586817 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bryan Burrough, coauthor of the bestselling Barbarians at the Gate, has a talent for reworking factual accounts so they read like first-rate thrillers. Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir is overwhelming in its scope and breadth of detail, culled from one-to-one interviews and transcripts of recorded conversations between the astronauts and cosmonauts on Mir and Russian Mission Control. Burrough delves deeply into the personal and professional lives of the 11 people who lived aboard Mir from 1995 to 1998. What we soon discover is simultaneously disheartening and fascinating: the men and women who would be astronauts must run a gauntlet of hazings, are judged professionally on their personal lives, and win flight assignments through serendipity as often as through hard work. NASA is controlled by cliques and cults of personality: "People don't speak out, because George makes short work of you if you do.... If you get on his bad side, you won't get a flight assignment...." There are "issues dealing with training and the selection of crews that you don't dare speak up about." The down-to-the- last-bolt descriptions of life aboard the station, from what the air smells like to an explanation of "penguin suits" to the distance between the dinner table and the original, now seldom-used toilet-- 2 feet--will thrill space enthusiasts. Space may not be "where no man has gone before" anymore, but it nevertheless provides endless dream fodder for those of us left behind on Earth. --Jhana Bach, Amazon.com

Synopsis
Space is dangerous. Life in space unbearably fragile. Blasting across it in a rocket is daring enough, but to really claim it, to tame it, you have to stay there, to live in it. Only a few have tried, in every case their courage beyond question. Because in space even a fleck of paint can be deadly. Spacewalking outside the Mir station, though seemingly tranquil, is in effect walking at 18000 miles per hour. That one fleck of paint has the destructive power of a dum-dum bullet. Since 1992 astronauts and cosmonauts have been have been conducting an extraordinary living experiment as Russian and American character and method clatter headlong into one another. Mir is a 25-year-old space station coming to the end of its life in terrfying style. It has been the site of the worst ever fire in space, and a near fatal collision when a supply ship pierced the station's hull. This is a story that is space fact, not science fiction, sour Russians, intense Americans and a resourceful Briton battle to establish a homestead on the final frontier.

Customer Reviews

Not A Promising Start... But Read On!!!
The cover blurb of the UK version put me off, because it contained factually incorrect statements. But Burrough didn't write the blurb, so don't take the cover as an indication of the content.

There are a few silly errors in the text, but they would only annoy you if you knew better. For example the Soyuz isn't launched on a Proton rocket, and the cosmonauts don't wear Orlan suits for launch and entry - they wear the lightweight Sokol (Falcon) outfits.

More seriously, the geometry of the collision is wrong (he is using what was reported in the Media at the time) and even though he refers to the video from the Progress camera, he appears either not to have watched it or not have been able to 'see' what it portrayed.

What is crucial, is to appreciate that much of the drama is recreated. It is important to distinguish between the italicised transcript quotes and the 'reconstructed' conversations, and between fact (as far as can be reconstructed from video) and the picture painted in the book.

I have heard it slagged as anti-NASA. I disagree. I reckon it was probably fair in the sense that he captured the lousy working relationship between the Russians (controllers and cosmonauts), the Americans (those working on Shuttle-Mir and those ignoring it), and the thrown-together cooperation. To that extent, this was undoubtedly a valuable learning curve for ISS for all concerned.

I can't help feel that the fly in the ointment is always the US Congress with its obsession for 'overseeing', but no sense of responsibility for the consequences.

I think the book brought out the fact that the folks working in Russia and America on these space projects are not exactly singing in harmony.

I strongly recommend this book.

Perfect combination of engineering, politics, and psychology
A fascinating tale which combines engineering, politics, and psychology in a fascinating brew. One knew that there was this rather sordid piece of bad housekeeping circling around overhead, but the accounts of almost everything - from the problems of daily living to the crises (try setting your own space-ship on fire) are gripping. A great story, brilliantly well told.

Not A Very Promising Start!!
I went out and bought a copy of Burrough's DRAGONFLY... Upon settling down to start reading it, I opened the book at the blurb on the inside cover...

"25 June 1997, 12.06. Space Station Mir. Astronauts Lazutkin, Foale and Tsibliyev await the imminent arrival of the Progress supply vessel. It >has vanished from their radar."

Mir doesn't have a radar. It does has transponders for the Kurs 'radio-technical' system on the spacecraft, but, as I understand it, this was deactivated for this TORU docking test.

"12.08. The Progress suddenly appears from behind a vast solar panel, much closer than expected and moving too fast."

The ferry approached Mir from above (with respect to the Earth) and Mir was 'upside down', with its 'floor' facing the ferry. There are no solar panels projecting in the direction from which the ferry was approaching, so it could not have been 'behind' one.

"12.09. The Progress passes by the docking port and crashes into the hull of Mir."

It was not approaching Mir on-axis, to dock with Kvant 1. It flew in from above, and nosed the 'floor' of Kvant 1, rotated and rear-ended Spektr. I cite the evidence of the TV from the ferry's docking camera.

Burrough is supposed to have spoken to all the principals, and gained access to transcripts. Don't tell me he didn't see the video - it was presented on CNN, afterall.

Not too impressive so far!

And I haven't even reached page 1... but maybe it will get better

David Harland