Air & S pace Power Journal-Spring 2008
In Their Own Words: Conversations with the Astronauts and Men Who Led America’s Journey into Space edited by Scott Sacknoff. SpaceBusiness.com (http://www.spacebusiness.com),P.O. Box 5752, Bethesda, Maryland 20824-5752, 2003, 224 pages, $14.95 (softcover).
Anyone with an interest in the US space program will enjoy In Their Own Words. A fascinating and enjoyable read that I had trouble putting down, it consists of 14 interviews, eight of which are with astronauts and the remainder with other famous figures associated with the space program. A variety of individuals conducted these interviews, which reveal many little-known anecdotes. These tidbits range from the mundane and humorous to the surprising and tragic. Although I began following the space program very closely almost 40 years ago, I was surprised by what I learned from this anthology.
The only chapters presented in chronological order include Robert Goddard’s and Alan Shepard’s. Although not an interview, Goddard’s chapter consists of excerpts from his report of a launch in 1940 of a liquid-propelled rocket weighing 500 pounds. His writings summarize the work that further advances in spaceflight would require, including “fields of study and mathematical analysis, experimentation, invention, laboratory and shop work, ground tests, and air demonstrations” (p. 6).
The modesty of Goddard in chapter 1 contrasts sharply with the arrogance of Alan Shepard in chapter 2. Shepard refers to Pres. John F. Kennedy as “Jack” several times, indicates how he justly won the intense competition among the Mercury 7 astronauts to be selected for the first mission, and gives the reader the impression that the program “owed” him a mission to the moon. I was never a fan of Shepard, and this interview reinforced my feelings. Interestingly, the interview with Walter Cronkite also mentioned how members of the press thought Shepard was arrogant and how they even circulated a petition to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration requesting the selection of the popular John Glenn as the first American into space.
The book picks up the pace in subsequent chapters, each interview shedding more light on the space program—especially its human side. Most of the astronauts appear hard working, grateful to have been chosen for the space program, and very smart. Pete Conrad Jr. is a case in point. A Purdue graduate with an advanced engineering degree and impeccable test-pilot credentials, he had much more personality than Neil Armstrong and added levity to his moon landing, which occurred just four months after Apollo 11’s. In this interview, we learn that Apollo 11 landed four miles from its planned landing site and that the pinpoint accuracy of Apollo 12 was truly amazing, allowing the astronauts to take samples from a surveyor spacecraft located within sight of the lunar module.
Interviews with Charles Duke, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Guenter Wendt, Gen Bernard Schriever (father of the intercontinental ballistic missile), Scott Grissom (Gus Grissom’s oldest son), Jim McDivitt, Jack Lousma, and Walter Cronkite reveal additional fascinating points:
•The most beautiful sight from space was of Earth rising above the moon, a “typical 2001 impression . . . very stark and spectacular,” according to Charles Duke (p. 52).
•Astronauts walking on the moon frequently fell because of the bulky pressure suits and the moon’s low gravity (one-sixth that of Earth).
•Three of the four lunar-landing training vehicles crashed during training, one crash almost killing Neil Armstrong.
•Gus Grissom would have probably been the first man on the moon had he not died in the Apollo 1 disaster.
•Scott Grissom, the astronaut’s oldest son, believes Neil Armstrong was not a good pick for Apollo 11 because he was “very shy, very, very reclusive” and not a good ambassador for the space program (p. 76).
The most memorable passages, especially those by Pete Conrad and Charles Duke, come from descriptions of walking on the moon. As Conrad recounts, “I don’t think that anybody realizes what it means to say that the moon is one-quarter the size of the Earth until one stands on it. It is small. My first impression was, ‘I can’t believe this. This thing is curving away from me. I can see it going over the hill.’ We were out walking around, a distance not too far away from the LM [lunar module], when we realized that we couldn’t see it anymore. The LM was 23 feet tall!” (p. 42). When asked if he had explored any craters, Duke responded, “Neither John [Young] nor I ventured to the bottom of a crater such as Plum or North Ray crater. These craters were too deep for us and the walls too steep. The dangers were considerable at a crater such as North Ray which was almost two hundred feet deep. If you accidentally fell into that crater and survived the fall there was no way to extract yourself as we had no lifelines or the ability to pull one another out” (p. 61).
Although the book offers many other exceedingly interesting stories and balanced interviews covering both the support side of space and actual operations, it does suffer from a few minor flaws. The interviews are choppy at times, jumping between different topics haphazardly, and misspellings are common—probably the result of not adequately proofreading the transcriptions of the recorded interviews. But these shortfalls are minor and do not significantly detract from the book.
With 125 shuttle flights now history, there is clearly plenty of material for a sequel to In Their Own Words. When Orion, the planned successor to the space shuttle, begins taking astronauts back to the moon and beyond, we will have even more interviews to motivate and fascinate readers, especially young people who, like previous generations, will be eager to reach for the stars.
Col Phil Bossert, USAF
University of Houston
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