Editorial Note: Led by Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones, produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
From Balloons to Drones is excited to be joined by veteran astronaut Tom Jones to talk about the history of the US Space Shuttle Program. Having flown in space on four shuttle missions, Jones shares not only his own perspective but also reflects on the entirety of the shuttle program based on the interviews and research that informed his new book, Space Shuttle Stories: Firsthand Astronaut Accounts from All 135 Missions (2023), from Smithsonian Books.
Tom Jones is a veteran astronaut, planetary scientist, pilot, author, and speaker who completed four space shuttle missions and three spacewalks in helping build the International Space Station. Jones has authored six books, including Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir, and has written for aerospace magazines such as Air & Space Smithsonian, Aerospace America, Popular Mechanics, and The Planetary Report. A senior research scientist for IHMC, he appears regularly on television news as an expert commentator for space exploration and science stories.
Header image: Space Shuttle Atlantis takes flight on its STS-27 mission on 2 December 1988, utilising 375,000 pounds of thrust produced by its three main engines. The engines start in 3.9 seconds of ignition and go to static pump speeds of approximately 35,000 revolutions per minute during that time. (Source NASA)
Editorial Note: Led by Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones, produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
The American spaceflight program is a popular, inspirational story that many of us are familiar with, but what about the Soviet Union’s space program? To explore it, we’re joined by Dr Cathleen Lewis, Curator of International Space Programs and Spacesuits at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and author of Cosmonaut: A Cultural History (2023) from the University of Florida Press. She tells us not only about how the Soviet space program worked but its cultural effect on the people of the Soviet Union and how it has been remembered since then.
We apologize for an audio problem with one of our microphones that we were unaware of until editing, when it was too late to fix.
Dr Cathleen S. Lewis is the Curator of International Space Programs and Spacesuits at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, specializing in Soviet and Russian history. She co-edited Spaceflight: A Smithsonian Guide and Air and Space History: An Annotated Bibliography.
Header image: Visitors at the 38th Paris International Air and Space Shown at Le Bourget Airfield line up to tour a Soviet An-225 Mriya aircraft with the Space Shuttle Buran on its back. (Source: Wikimedia)
Andy Saunders, Apollo Remastered: The Ultimate Photographic Record. New York, NY: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishing. Hbk. 443 pp.
Reviewed by Dr Brian Laslie
This review represents the fourth in a series of crewed space exploration photographic records. Previously, I have reviewed Picturing Apollo 11(2019) and Picturing the Space Shuttle(2021), both out of the University Press of Florida and Photographing America’s First Astronauts(2023), out of Purdue University Press. All three of these books were authored by J.L. Pickering & John Bisney and represented something of a trilogy of books. The success of these books and others, including Apollo VII-XVII (2018) by authors Floris Heyne, Joel Meter, Simon Phillipson, and Delano Steenmeijer, demonstrate that there is a powerful attachment to both the early astronauts, photographs taken from space, and a seemingly never-ending desire to reflect on those who have slipped the surly bonds of Earth.
In Apollo Remastered, Andy Saunders, one of the foremost experts on NASA digital restoration, has combed through the NASA collection of 35,000 photographs. These pictures ‘securely stored in a freezer, to help maintain [their] condition’ have recently been ‘thawed, cleaned, and digitally scanned to an unprecedented resolution.’ (p. 1) Saunders presents the reader with a truly amazing collection of photographs, many never before seen, rendered in absolutely fantastic detail.
Each mission has a full-page layout showing the mission patch and covers the details, the crew, the mission and, most notably for this book, the photography. Yes, the photos are familiar but not found together in any other published collection. In each photograph, Saunders not only gives necessary explanatory details but also lists the photographer, the type of camera, the lens used to take the shot, and the NASA ID number, essentially ‘footnoting’ every photograph.
Apollo 9 Command/Service Modules (CSM), nicknamed Gumdrop’ and Lunar Module (LM), nicknamed ‘Spider’, are shown docked together as Command Module pilot David R. Scott stands in the open hatch. Astronaut Russell L. Schweickart, Lunar Module pilot, took this photograph of Scott during his EVA as he stood on the porch outside the Lunar Module. (Source: Wikimedia)
Rather than a detailed description of the book, I have herein chosen to detail a few of the photographs from various Apollo missions that caused me to pause and reflect during my journey through Apollo Remastered:
Apollo 7: A photo taken by Walter Cunningham showing the ‘whole Florida peninsula lit up by sunrays.’ (p. 47)
Apollo 8: It would be easy to state the best photo for this mission is the world-famous ‘Earthrise’ photograph taken by Astronaut Bill Anders and recreated in the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon, but instead, I found myself drawn to a two-page spread of the Sea of Fertility and the Goclenius Crater. (pp. 60-1)
Apollo 9: Another full-page spread (pp. 82-3) taken by lunar module pilot Rusty Schweickart. On the left of the photo, Earth takes up the entirety of the background, while the blackness of space is on the right. Command module pilot Dave Scott stands in the open hatch of the Command Module, the Service Module extending behind him toward Earth. From Schweikart’s position on the Lunar Module’s porch, one can make out its quad thrusters and one of the foot pads and Lunar surface contact sensors. However, what makes the photo all the more striking is a single dot in the blackness of space while the Moon, some 250,000 miles away, awaits.
Apollo 11: The most iconic mission of the Apollo program and the one fulfilling the first half of Kennedy’s desire ‘that this nation should commit itself to achieve the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.’ Picking one picture from this mission proved difficult. In the end, I believe the one my eyes looked at the longest was the photo Michael Collins captured of the returning lunar module carrying Armstrong and Aldrin with the Moon below and Earth in the background. As Saunders notes, Collins ‘is the only person alive, or has ever lived, who is not in the frame of this photograph.’ (p. 178)
Apollo 13: After the accident that ended any hope of landing on the Moon, a photograph shows Apollo 13 as it enters the shadow of the Moon, a photo with just a sliver of the Moon tantalizingly close as Saunders notes that Commander Jim Lovell ‘is the only person to visit the moon twice and not walk on its surface.’ (p. 217)
Obviously, there were hundreds of other photos in this wor. The book was an absolute pleasure to sit and go through each image page by page and reflect on the legacy of Apollo. This book makes the reader and myself contemplate what the moon landings meant then and our next journey from the Earth to the Moon.
This book is undoubtedly the most magnificent collection of Apollo photographs available for purchase. Those interested in the golden age of space flight will spend hours poring through this collection. However, as I looked through these photographs, now 50-60 years old, I pondered the next set of photos we would see in only another year. It was not lost on me that I began reading this book on the same day that NASA named which Astronauts would fly to the Moon on Artemis II, and I wondered what photographs that mission would give to posterity and us.
Header image: ‘Earthrise’ is a photograph of Earth and some of the Moon’s surface taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on 24 December 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. (Source: Wikimedia)
J.L. Pickering and John Bisney, Photographing America’s First Astronauts: Project Mercury Through the Lens of Bill Taub. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2023. Images. Bibliography. Hbk. 340 pp.
Reviewed by Dr Brian Laslie
In 2019, I wrote a book review for From Balloons to Drones, where I began the review by saying:
A different type of book necessitates a different type of book review. Herein you will not find an author’s argument or a critique thereof since the book being discussed today is a collection of photographs and an extremely fine one at that.
Pickering and Bisney’s newest work, Photographing America’s First Astronauts: Project Mercury Through the Lens of Bill Taub, from Purdue University Press, claims to be the ‘most complete photographic account of Project Mercury ever published.’ With more than 600 photographs across 340 pages, it is hard to argue that they have not accomplished this. This is the sixth space-related photography book from Pickering and Bisney, which is clearly a life-long passion for both. Pickering has explored the photos of the US crewed space program for nearly 50 years, and journalist Bisney, a retired national news correspondent, covered the US space program for more than 30 years. Their combined 80+ years of experience is clearly demonstrated in how they choose their photos and, more importantly, in how they describe every image providing a photographic journey and an excellent history.
The ‘Mercury Seven’ astronauts pose with an Atlas model in 1959. Front row, left to right: Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, Deke Slayton and Gordon Cooper. Back row: Alan Shepard, Wally Schirra and John Glenn. (Source: Wikimedia)
There can be little doubt that Project Apollo has garnered more photography books than Project Mercury or Project Gemini – Apollo Remastered: The Ultimate Photographic Record (2022) and Apollo: VII – XVII (2018) are two recent excellent examples. However, it is refreshing to see a new approach to a space photography book and the documentation of the Mercury 7 program. This book features the photography of William (Bill) Taub, NASA’s first staff photographer. Previously Taub served as a photographer for NASA’s predecessor organisation, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Taub travelled extensively with the Mercury astronauts. Taub followed the astronauts on many of their travels, capturing thousands of photographs of the Mercury 7 between 1959 and 1963. These photos are both official and candid from an individual who was truly a fly-on-the-wall of Project Mercury from start to finish.
Where many might claim to be publishing ‘never-before-seen images,’ in this case, it is true, as the authors gained access to Taub’s collection of photos, slides, and negatives after his passing. What they discovered and published is – without fear of hyperbole on my part – truly the greatest collection of photos of America’s first crewed space program and its famous seven members. Herein, each of the Mercury 7 get their own chapter, but the supporting cast is not ignored either, as the NASA leaders and support members also find themselves highlighted. Chapters one and two focus on the ‘Steps to Space’ and ‘The People of Mercury,’ (it was a great pleasure to see Astronaut Nurse Lieutenant Dee O’Hara highlighted). Chapters three through nine are dedicated to the originals themselves: Alan Shepard/Mercury-Redstone 3, Gus Grissom/Mercury-Redstone 4, John Glenn/Mercury-Atlas 6, Deke Slayton/Destiny Delayed, Scott Carpenter/Mercury-Atlas 7. Wally Schirra/Mercury-Atlas 8, and Gordon Cooper/Mercury-Atlas 9. Although a photographic record of the astronauts and Project Mercury, Pickering and Bisney also included many family photos as well continuing the tradition of the focus on the ones who remained on the ground and supported the astronauts the most: Louise Shepard, Betty Grissom, Annie Glenn, Marge Slayton, Rene Carpenter, Lo Schirra, and Trudy Cooper and their children.
Photographing America’s First Astronauts is another stunning success in a series of works that will undoubtedly be found on the bookshelf of everyone who loves the golden age of spaceflight. Since the authors have so adroitly covered the first astronauts, might this reviewer suggest a book on the NASA Astronaut Group 8 which included the first female and minority astronauts?
Header image: The Mercury Seven astronauts with a US Air Force Convair F-106B Delta Dart aircraft at Langley Air Force Base. From left to right: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton, 26 January 1961. (Source: Wikimedia)
Geoffrey Bowman, A Long Voyage to the Moon: The Life of Naval Aviator and Apollo 17 Astronaut Ron Evans. Lincoln, NE: University Press of Nebraska, 2021. Foreword. Images. Sources. Hbk, 377 pp.
Reviewed by Dr Brian Laslie
Ronald E. Evans is not a household name. Names such as Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and Neil Armstrong remain more or less recognisable to the wider society. Indeed, even later Apollo astronauts, such as Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Jim Lovell, or John Young, might still trigger images or recognition to a particular generation or those interested in the history of space flight. However, Evans has been significantly overlooked. That is what being the last person to do something will get you: obscurity. Evans was a member of Apollo 17, the last crewed mission to the moon. As such, he was the last Command Module Pilot to fly as part of the Apollo program. Evans also holds several other auspicious accolades. He holds the record for the most time spent in lunar orbit; he was the last man to orbit the moon alone and was the last man to conduct a deep space extravehicular activity. Indeed, Evans was one of only three individuals to have ever done a deep space extravehicular activity. In addition, he remains one of only 24 individuals to ever journey beyond Earth’s orbit into deep space and travel to another celestial body.
After reading the above, it should be apparent that being the last person to do something does not mean your name should end in relative obscurity, placed in a footnote, or known only to those with a passion for all things space. The omission of an Evans biography has finally been corrected by author Geoffrey Bowman and his recent book A Long Voyage to the Moon: The Life of Naval Aviator and Apollo 17 Astronaut Ron Evans which comes out of the University Press of Nebraska stables as part of their absolutely stellar Outward Odyssey Series.
The prime crew for the Apollo 17 lunar landing mission: Commander, Eugene A. Cernan (seated), Command Module pilot Ronald E. Evans (standing on right), and Lunar Module pilot, Harrison H. Schmitt, 10 October 1972. The Apollo 17 Saturn V Moon rocket is in the background. (Source: Wikimedia)
Bowman successfully highlights the contributions of Evans to the US Navy as he flew missions over North Vietnam before his selection to NASA and his steady progression as a member of various support crews and backup Command Module Pilot on Apollo 14 before landing in a prime spot as the Command Module Pilot for Apollo 17. Moreover, Evans is unique among the Apollo astronauts as the only ‘moon man’ and Vietnam combat veteran. Throughout the narrative, Bowman pulls together the words and remembrances of Evans’ fellow astronauts and the astronaut wives. The use of the recollections of astronaut’s wives is something missing in older histories of the Apollo program. One of the primary contributors to Bowman’s research was a series of interviews with Evan’s wife Jan, and the author makes excellent use of her perspective throughout the narrative. That being said, when Bowman settles into Evan’s training for and flying Apollo, the author’s ability takes flight. Bowman proves he is much more comfortable with who Evans is and his contributions to the Apollo program.
Much like Evans himself, Bowman has worked doggedly to produce this history, and the author and press should be proud of the result. However, as a historian more bent toward academic endnotes, the lack of sourcing continues to be a problem in an otherwise magnificent series. While the Outward Odyssey series is the single best multi-volume series on the complete history of crewed spaceflight, it is sometimes frustrating not to know where a particular quote came from, but that is a relatively minor gripe. As I own all the books in this series, it has clearly not stopped me from continuing to purchase these books.
Ultimately, this work will appeal to those who simply cannot read enough about the history of crewed space flight. We should all be thankful that Bowman has written this book and shined a light on this historic aviator and space traveller.
Dr Brian Laslie is an Air Force Historian and currently the Command Historian at the United States Air Force Academy. A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air and space power studies, he received his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. His first book, The Air Force Way of War (2015), was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s and the Royal Air Force’s Chief of the Air Staff professional reading lists. He is also the author of several books on air force and air power history. He lives in Colorado Springs. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.
Header image: Eugene Cernan on the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission, 12 December 1972. (Source: Wikimedia)
Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
Fred Haise was on Apollo 13, flew the space shuttle Enterprise, and had an extensive military aviation career. In this episode, he joins us for a deep dive into all of those experiences and reveals how he is able to keep calm in tough situations and not panic. That’s the subject of his new book, Never Panic Early: An Apollo 13 Astronaut’s Journey, from Smithsonian Books.
Fred Haise served as a backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 8 and Apollo 11 before serving as the Lunar Module Pilot for the Apollo 13 mission. He worked with NASA for nine years after Apollo 13, serving on the backup crew for Apollo 16, commanding free flight test missions for the Space Shuttle program, and was scheduled to command Apollo 19 before its cancellation. He left NASA in 1979 to work as an executive for Grumman Aerospace Corp.
Header image: Fred Haise views his Apollo 13 mission patch, the flight on which he served in 1970, in a StenniSphere display donated to NASA by the American Needlepoint Guild. The exhibit is on permanent display at StenniSphere, the visitor center at John C. Stennis Space Center. (Source: Wikimedia)
Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
The Apollo program, including the moon landing, is one of the most famous events in world history, and one of the most inspirational. Dr Teasel Muir-Harmony, the Curator of the Apollo collection at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, joins us to re-evaluate Apollo and look at its political dimensions across the world.
Dr Teasel Muir-Harmony is a historian of science and technology and Curator of the Apollo Spacecraft Collection at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Before coming to the Smithsonian Institution, she earned a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and held positions at the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics and the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum. Her most recent book is Operation Moonglow: A Political History of Project Apollo (2020).
Header image: The Apollo 15 Service Module as viewed from the Apollo Lunar Module, 2 August 1971. (Source: Wikimedia)
J.L. Pickering and John Bisney, Picturing the Space Shuttle: The Early Years. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2021. Hbk. 240 pp.
Reviewed by Dr Brian Laslie
A couple of years ago, in a book review for From Balloons to Drones, I started by saying:
A different type of book necessitates a different type of book review. Herein you will not find an author’s argument or a critique thereof since the book being discussed today is a collection of photographs and an extremely fine one at that.
That book review was for J.L. Pickering and John Bisney’s Picturing Apollo 11: Rare Views and Undiscovered Moments. The same authors have followed up that superb effort with the recently released Picturing the Space Shuttle: The Early Years.
As the title suggests, the authors undertake to produce a pictorial history of – and to look at the development of – the reusable Shuttle Transportation System (STS), the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT), the astronaut class of 1978 (the ‘Thirty-Five New Guys,’ or TFNGs) and the first four STS missions that made up the test program for the new shuttle. Pickering and Bisney have again accomplished just that and produced a unique look at the early days of the space shuttle program, using rare, never-before-published photographs from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The book opens with a forward from STS-1 pilot Robert L. Crippen, who stated that he hoped the book ‘will increase your appreciation for what a remarkable accomplishment the Space Shuttle was.’ Crippen need not worry; the book does precisely that.
Although ostensibly a book of photographs, there is also enough background here to keep the layman and the historian happy with the development of the program. However, it is the photos that stand out. From Maxime Faget’s original model of a reusable space shuttle to the numerous designs, concepts, and artists’ renderings as they developed into the recognizable shuttle design that went into production, there are enough photographs in the first chapter alone to make the book worth the purchase.
This is a montage of the individual portraits of the 35-member 1978 class of astronaut candidates. The Astronaut Class of 1978, otherwise known as the ‘Thirty-Five New Guys,’ was NASA’s first new group of astronauts since 1969. This class was notable for many reasons, including having the first African-American and first Asian-American astronauts and the first women. From left to right are Guion S. Bluford, Daniel C. Brandenstein, James F. Buchli, Michael L. Coats, Richard O. Covey, John O. Creighton, John M. Fabian, Anna L. Fisher, Dale A. Gardner, Robert L. Gibson, Frederick D. Gregory, S. David Griggs, Terry J. Hart, Frederick H. (Rick) Hauck, Steven A. Hawley, Jeffrey A. Hoffman, Shannon W. Lucid, Jon A. McBride, Ronald E. McNair, Richard M. (Mike) Mullane, Steven R. Nagel, George D. Nelson, Ellison S. Onizuka, Judith A. Resnik, Sally K. Ride, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Rhea Seddon, Brewster H. Shaw Jr., Loren J. Shriver, Robert L. Stewart, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Norman E. Thagard, James D. Van Hoften, David M. Walker and Donald E. Williams. (Source: NASA)
Some of the great gems are the photos that show the transition from the Apollo era to the shuttle era. Nowhere is this more clearly displayed than the chapter detailing the Shuttle Enterprise’s Approach and Landing Tests. Here, Apollo mission veteran Fred Haise (Apollo 13) is joined by Gordon Fullerton, Joe Engle, and Richard Truly to test the flying characteristics of the new shuttle. Dave Scott and Deke Slayton in very late-1970s garb also make appearances in these pages (pp. 38-9). This transition is completed in the next chapter with the introduction of NASA’s next astronaut class, the ‘TFNGs,’ which introduced America and the world to the names of Guion Bluford, Anna Fisher, Robert Gibson, Steven Hawley, Sally Ride, and many others. The book includes a complete montage of the 35 Group 8 astronauts, the TFNGs (p. 71). Many of them are also pictured testing out Apollo-era spacesuits, marking the transition from old to new. If you had a favourite shuttle-era astronaut, there is a good chance they were represented in this class, and I was pleased to see photos of some of my heroes herein: Rhea Seddon, Frederick Gregory, and Shannon Lucid (65-71).
Obviously, the book really takes off (pun completely intended) with a section devoted to the first four shuttle missions, all of them aboard the Columbia. After that, the book moves from construction at Palmdale to delivery to Kennedy. The woes of Columbia’s heat-ablative tiles are adequately covered and, although the shuttle is a brand-new ship, it looks the worse for wear in several photographs (pp. 104-5). However, these problems overcome, there are some truly terrific ‘behind the scenes’ shots as Columbia is mated to the stack and rolled out to the pad. Here, there are some iconic photographs of the shuttle sitting on the pad with the setting sun turning the clouds a stunning orange and lifting into bright clear-blue Florida skies, but also some great shots ‘on orbit’ and the crews returning safely to Earth along the tanned lakebed of Edwards Air Force Base in California.
The Space Shuttle Columbia touches down on lakebed runway 23 at Edwards Air Force Base to conclude the first orbital shuttle mission, 14 April 1981. (Source: NASA)
Picturing the SpaceShuttle is another masterwork. It is truly a tour de force and a compelling collection of photographs that should be on the bookshelf of everyone who considers themselves a shuttle aficionado. One hopes that Pickering and Bisney continue to comb through the photographic archives of later shuttle missions. It has been 40 years since Columbia lifted into the sky for the first time and, perhaps even more amazing, a decade since the last shuttle returned safely to earth. As time marches on and the shuttle program recedes into memory, Pickering and Bisney have given us a reason to remember what Astronaut John Young called the ‘world’s greatest flying machine,’ the Space Shuttle.
Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and is the Command Historian at the United States Air Force Academy. Formerly he was the Deputy Command Historian at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). He is the Book Reviews Editor for From Balloons to Drones. A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam (2021), Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force (2017) and The Air Force Way of War (2015). The latter book was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.
Header image: The Space Shuttle Columbia glides down over Rogers Dry Lake as it heads for a landing at Edwards Air Force Base at the conclusion of its first orbital mission on 14 April 1981. (Source: NASA)
Bruce McCandless III, Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the First Untethered Flight in Space. Austin, TX: Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2021. Illustrations. Notes. ARC. 247 pp.
Reviewed by Dr Brian Laslie
It is a picture that seems to hang somewhere in every elementary school and library in America. For that late Gen-X group born in the last half of the 1970s, it hung on the walls of our bedrooms next to baseball heroes Dale Murphy and Mike Schmidt. Space Historian Emily Carney has dubbed it simply ‘the poster.’ The image is so ubiquitous as to be almost forgettable, not because it is forgettable but because you see it everywhere: from museum walls to commercials. It is inescapable. It is easily as memorable as any photograph that came out of America’s early space program, and it remains one of NASA’s most requested pictures. The image is of an untethered astronaut floating alone in the blackness of space, feet dangling above a blue and white Earth. Even as I write this review, a version of the famed photo hangs in my office, a hand-painted copy by my oldest daughter, herself a budding STEM and space lover.
The astronaut in the photograph is Bruce McCandless II, hardly a household name; but you have heard his voice, and you have seen his face in the old B-rolls of the floor of mission control where he served as a CAPCOM (capsule communicator) on the Apollo 10, 11 and 14 missions. McCandless served as CAPCOM for the first lunar extravehicular activity (EVA), and said “Okay, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now.”
Hardly a household name, yet he was at the epicentre for two seismic events in the history of crewed spaceflight: the first steps on the moon and the man behind the mask in the first untethered EVA. That untethered EVA and his first ride into space was a long time in coming. Half of his astronaut class flew to the moon, including Jack Swigert, Al Worden, Stu Roosa, Ron Evans, and Ken Mattingly as Command Module Pilots, while classmates Edgar Mitchell and Charlie Duke walked on the surface of the moon. Fred Haise served as the Lunar Module Pilot for the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, another of McCandless’s astronaut class. Much of his class served on Skylab, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, and the early shuttle flights.
Bruce McCandless II, c. 1971. (Source: Wikimedia)
McCandless, and classmate Don Lind, was considered more a scientist than a pilot in his astronaut class. This undoubtedly hurt him in crew rotation and mission assignments. One need look no further than Astronaut Walter Cunningham’s book, The All-American Boys, to know that Deke Slayton did not look favourably on anyone who was not a test pilot. Cunningham aptly noted:
If an astronaut had been in space, he was a star. If he was on a crew, he was a prospect. If he was not yet in line, he was simply a suspect. He hadn’t really made the team. (Cunningham, p. 84).
Cunningham also noted that amongst all astronauts, ‘At the very bottom of the pile were the hyphenated astronauts, the scientists’ (Cunningham, p. 87). McCandless II almost became the astronaut the world forgot despite his presence in the famous photo.
In his new book Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the First Untethered Flight in Space, this omission is being corrected by his son, Bruce McCandless III. This book focuses on the astronauts of the Apollo era who doggedly hung on at NASA through the early Space Shuttle program. Also unusual is that Wonders all Around is the third book to either be authored or co-authored by a son or daughter of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo Astronauts, the others being Rosemary Roosa’s To the Moon: An Autobiography of an Apollo Astronaut’s Daughter, and Kris Stover’s For Spacious Skies, written with her father Scott Carpenter. All three bring a different perspective to the golden age of spaceflight.
The author traces the early journeys of his father but does not fall into the trap of taking too long to tell it. For Bruce McCandless, ‘the real joys of his life: reading, thinking, and engineering.’ This demonstrates that McCandless II was a man at home inside the cockpit and a textbook (p. 40). McCandless’ selection to NASA might not have come with a rapid assignment to a flight, but it did place him in the middle of the action, most notably with his selection serving as a CAPCOM. The author notes this assignment came with a bit of a letdown when he states:
It’s like being the backup quarterback who relays plays from the sidelines; you’re part of the action, but no one’s going to remember you after the game. (p. 62).
Nevertheless, McCandless II soldiered on through Apollo, Skylab, and Apollo-Soyuz, all without a flight assignment and grimly hung on through the intervening years waiting for the shuttle to come online. McCandless endured, and he could be seen ‘wandering the halls of Building 4, haunted by the ghosts of cancelled Apollo missions,’ even as newer generations of astronauts began to take their place in line for shuttle assignments (p. 134).
McCandless III sets about telling his father’s story and the societal, political, and cultural events that occurred along the way. He also delves into the family life of McCandless II at home, and, in this case, ‘dad’ comes across as a work-at-home, distant, slightly standoffish figure, that many in my generation can identify with.
Wonders all Around is the perfect transition book for those looking into the late-1970s lean years as NASA moved from the Saturn V to the Space Transport System. McCandless III notes that his dad was part of the transition from the all-male, test pilot atmosphere to the shuttle era’s more inclusive and scientific period. McCandless was there to see it all, still hoping for his first rocket launch and all along the way continuing his work on the piece of machinery that would solidify his place in the history of photography: the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).
Of course, the book inevitably leads to McCandless’ first flight, his piloting of the MMU up to 300+ feet from the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984, and ‘Hoot’ Gibson taking the now-iconic photo, but neither of the McCandless’s story ends there. Instead, McCandless II continued to stick it out at Houston and flew one more time on a possibly more famous mission, STS-31, which deployed the Hubble Space Telescope (I would be remiss here if I did not recommend Astronaut Kathryn Sullivan’s magnificent biography Handprints on Hubble).
Astronaut Bruce McCandless II, mission specialist, participates in a extra-vehicular activity (EVA), a few meters away from the cabin of Space Shuttle Challenger. He is using a nitrogen-propelled hand-controlled Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). He is performing this EVA without being tethered to the shuttle. The picture shows a cloud view of the Earth in the background. (Source: Wikimedia)
As new and forthcoming astronaut biographies continue to be published each year, our understanding of NASA as an organization continues to grow as well. McCandless III’s biography of his father adds to our understanding. McCandless II clearly had the ‘Right Stuff,’ but he had more than enough of the ‘Scientific Stuff’ to make him a legendary astronaut, and this biography cements the name of McCandless alongside Shepard, Armstrong, and Ride.
McCandless II said of that famous photo that “I have the sun visor down, so you can’t see my face, and that means it could be anybody in there. It’s sort of a representation not of Bruce McCandless, but mankind.”[1] That may be true, but the author has lifted that visor and allowed the sun to shine on the face of his father at last. Wonders All Around is a powerful biography, history, and love letter to an organization, an event, a photograph, and an individual.
Dr Brian Laslie is a US Air Force Historian and currently the Deputy Command Historian at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). He is also the Book Reviews Editor here at From Balloons to Drones. A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his Masters’ from Auburn University Montgomery in 2006 and his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. He is the author of Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force (2017) and The Air Force Way of War (2015). The latter book was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s 2016 professional reading list and the 2017 RAF Chief of the Air Staff’s reading list. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.
Header image: Astronaut Bruce McCandless, II tests a the manned maneuvering unit during a test involving the trunion pin attachment device he carries and the shuttle pallet satellite (SPAS-01A), partially visible at bottom of the frame. The space shuttle Challenger was flying with its aft end aimed toward the Earth. (Source: Wikimedia)
[1] Anne Broache, ‘Footloose,’Smithsonian Magazine, August 2005.
Editorial Note: Led by our Editor Dr Mike Hankins, From Balloons to Drones produces a monthly podcast that provides an outlet for the presentation and evaluation of air power scholarship, the exploration of historical topics and ideas, and provides a way to reach out to both new scholars and the general public. You can find our Soundcloud channel here. You can also find our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.
In the latest entry in our podcast series, we interview prolific and celebrated author Jeff Shesol about his latest book Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War. In this episode Shesol talks about John Glenn, who captured the hearts and imagination of many Americans as the first US astronaut to orbit the earth. We not only talk about Glenn’s place in the history of the Cold War, but also in deeply personal terms.
Jeff Shesol is the author of Mercury Rising, most recently, as well as Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court and Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and the Feud That Defined a Decade, both selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. He is a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and is a founding partner of West Wing Writers. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds degrees in history from Oxford University and Brown University and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The New Yorker News Desk.
Header image: The Mercury Seven astronauts with a NASA Langley Research Center Convair F-106B Delta Dart aircraft at Langley Air Force Base, 20 January 1961. From left to right: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton. (Source: Wikimedia)
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