2008-10-13 A book by an ordinary guy meeting ordinary guys...who did extraordinary things

I was a real spaceflight geek when I was a kid - I think I still am, deep down. But I'd had my fill of cutaway-diagrammed, statistic-filled glossy coffee-table books about the Apollo Missions and, at the age of 30, wanted to read something a bit more human.

Some of the reviewers here have criticised the book because it's more about Andrew Smith's journey than it is about the astronauts themselves. But that's the point. He starts out being this schoolkid, wowed by the Apollo landings on TV, and as an adult decides to track the pilots down before they're lost forever. It's about his personal mission as much as theirs. And if their missions changed their lives, their lives certainly changed Smith's mission. The long, friendly chat with Alan Bean, still cheery and talented at the age of over 70, is pivotal to this. For these people are more just astronauts: They're flesh and blood people with families, just like the rest of us. Smith is one of the few spaceflight authors who deals with this aspect of things head-on.

This book was fascinating, sometimes hilarious, often profoundly moving. Very few books tell the story of Apollo from this perspective, because they're books for the brain. This is a book for the heart, and needs to be read as such.