Yet Another Apollo Program Book . . .

This book was a lucky find at a local thrift store. I'm a space program junkie so anything with "moon" in the title will catch my eye, and when I spotted the three names on the cover, buying the book was a no-brainer.

I didn't know if I'd learn anything new about the Apollo program reading the book, but I was wrong.

Remember that scene in "The Right Stuff," where Alan Shepard is shamed in the hospital for liking Bill Dana and his "Cowardly Astronaut" routine, and it's implied after the shaming (or maybe not; it could be just me) he never liked the humor again?

Wrong.

Turns out Shepard and several other astronauts became friends with Dana and acted as straight men in some privately-performed versions of the skits.

Does that make them racist?

I don't think so. I don't necessarily believe racism was a core part of Dana's humor either. But, yanno, times change and such.

An aside: Dana wrote this episode of "All in the Family." That that for what you will.

(I could be told I'm wrong, but I believe the conversations about race in the 1970s were a bit more honest and straighforward than the ones we have today.)

But back to the book.

There are a few passages that make this book unique among those I've read about the Apollo program. You can tell it was written by actual astronauts. I love, for example, these bits:

"Punching through maximum aerodynamic pressure was another adventure as enormous forces squeezed and shook the Saturn 1B. Vibration pummelled the entire rocket and the Apollo. Then, suddenly, they were through Max Q, and they shot upward like a frightened jack rabbit. Almost at once, now into the supersonic region, engine roar and the high-pitched howl of air dripping past the rocket vanished.

"While the noise of the liftoff abated, the booster complained with deep. hollow groans and the craking of an old wooden ship wallowing in rough seas. Finally came the burnout of the first stage. For a precious moment the creaks, groans, willges, shaking,vibration, and other unpleasantness were gone."

Quite a description of the sudden changes observed when a craft passes through the sound barrier.

Not credited on the cover are two co-authors, Jay Barbee, a space correspondent for NSAS and Howard Benedict, an AP aerospace writer. I have to imagine their input on the book was invaluable. And maybe could have been used on the books' final chapters which really wandered a bit and were not as tightly-written as the rest. Maybe the subject matter -- the buildup to the Apollo-Soyuz mission and the mission itself -- just wasn't as exciting to me as the rest, but the writing felt a little lackluster.