I just finished reading Mike Mullane’s autobiographic “Riding Rockets“.  Mullane is a retired mission specialist astronaut with 3 missions under his belt.  It turns out that Mullane and I share one discouraging life experience.  I also wanted to be an astronaut and was also disappointed to learn in college (Air Force ROTC) that my nearsightedness would prevent me from getting a pilot slot in the Air Force or Navy.  Undaunted, Mullane went on to the next best option of GIB (Guy In Back) and became a USAF weapon systems officer.  His transition to astronaut from GIB was made possible by the NASA’s decision to eliminate the requirement of pilot experience as a prerequisite for mission specialist .  No doubt his degree from West Point, 150 combat missions in Viet Nam, test pilot school at Edwards, and a masters in aeronautical engineering helped him a bit.  I realized that I was a nearsighted, pathological smartass and left ROTC and went into chemistry.  Mullane persisted and got into space. I succumbed to the enchantment of organic chemistry and explored conformational space.

Mullane writes rather well and provides a reasonably balanced narrative over the time spanning his career. I would say that the main reason to read the book would be to get some insight into life in the astronaut corps.   If you put two people in a room, you have politics.  And it is no different with astronauts. Mullane details what can only be described as a byzantine system of decision-making for mission assignments and the characters who made these decisions.

Mullane describes in considerable detail the experience of a scrubbed launch. He bid farewell to his family and strapped a fully fueled shuttle to his backside 9 times for 3 launches.  Mullane tells of his own private fears and the fear that was (is) felt among many other astronauts- a feeling quite apart from the confident and laconic persona they might show in public. Indeed, he has been outspoken in regard to the safety of the shuttle fleet and in a manner uncharacteristic of astronauts, generally.

Far from being a monolithic group of superheros, the astronaut corp consists of a surprisingly diverse group of individuals.  As a group, astronauts are super achievers and not lacking the usual spectrum of attributes you might expect.  There is no shortage of ego or swaggering bravado.   Historically, astronauts come from an aeronautical background and as such, are accustomed to the flight environment and the norms that go along with it. During Mullanes tenure at NASA, the program saw civilian and other non-traditional astronauts take increasingly important roles in the mission.  In particular, this period of time following the first trial flights saw female astronauts accumulating a considerable number flight hours on orbit.

He describes in detail how the astronauts felt after the loss of Challenger and Columbia.  Mullane is of the opinion that the shuttle should have a better crew escape system.  Evidently he logged an ejection from an F-111, so he has first hand experience with bailout systems. There are literally thousands of parts and systems whose failure could tragically end a mission and the lives of its crew.  But like everyone who wants to fly in space, you swallow your fears and strap in anyway.

In the context of books in this genre, I’d give him a A- for his courage to be critical of NASA.  He now works as a motivational speaker.