Book Description
This book is designed to provide a broad overview of the International Space Station's complex configuration, design, and component systems. The sophisticated procedures required in the Station's construction and operation are presented in Amazing 3D Graphics generated by NASA 104 pages of spectacularly detailed color graphics the Space Station as you’ve never seen it before! If you haven’t got the $20 Million . . . get this book. It’s almost as good as being there. Apogee Books Space Series #62.
Customer Reviews:
Steppingstone to the Solar System.......2007-04-12
If you are interested in manned spaceflight and space stations, then this book is for you. It is an excellent overview of the current state of the ISS. The book is put together very well with excellent color photographs and diagrams that thoroughly explain the complicated workings of the International Space Station. Many interesting facts and data are contained in this book which will enlighten and entertain the reader. I highly recommend this book!
crowded quarters.......2007-03-13
Damn crowded! If you aspire to be an astronaut, you need to be a claustrophile. Despite the initial seemingly large size of the ISS, the many photos reveal it as very cramped. With equipment and people. Of course, this is a sheer necessity, given the high cost of lifting one kilo into orbit.
Several research labs are also shown. Like the Japan Experiment Module. Along with the Russian Progress module, for transporting materials to the ISS. All seem very promising for ultimately easing our way into space.
The book excels in giving many glimpses, in colour, of the ISS.
The I.S.S. book you have been waiting for!.......2007-01-23
So here you are with maybe -at least two books about the Space Station in your collection, and each one has different configurations of how the modules look and you aren't even sure how they fit together?
Well fire the retros and land on this one.
Gary Kitmacher has put the latest information together and produced a GREAT book about how this International effort comes together.
Kitmacher, a modelmaker himself hasn't forgotten those of us that use glue - he has illustrated this with the best artwork one can find without using a computer.
Clear, concise, and beautiful. Another great Apogee book!
Great for all upper grade levels - this will find it's way into the schoolrooms and the boardrooms.
best book money can buy.......2006-12-19
This is a terrific publication. Profusely illustrated with photos and cutaway drawings, it is the perfect guide to the International Space Station. Each assembly stage is described and illustrated as well as each major component/systems already on orbit and the ones planned until the end of the station's assembly. Details of space vehicles deserving the station are also given as well as facilities and ground operations centers. And last but not least, a list of all Expeditions and Crews is given with their names, photos and mission emblems! The same is provided for the shuttle missions. A list of Soyuz and Progress flights is present as well.
A truly magnificent book. Simply brilliant.
Average customer rating:
- More Solar System Adventures from Ben Bova
- One of Bova's Best - A Science Fiction Masterpiece
- No sublety, SciFi of the lowest order
- Beyond Life As We Know It
- A Scientist and Believer
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Jupiter
Ben Bova
Manufacturer: Tor Books
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Ben Bova's Grand Tour Of The Universe: Saturn
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Venus
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Return to Mars
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Empire Builders (The Grand Tour)
ASIN: 0312872178 |
Amazon.com
He made planetfall on Venus and all but colonized Mars, so it's not surprising that SF don Ben Bova finally set his sights on our solar system's swirling, red-eyed sovereign.
As with his previous planetary exploration books, Jupiter plants you right in the heart of the action, witness to the speculative science and political intrigue--and in this case, religious machination--that surround a fast-paced, dangerous, and technically fleshed-out mission. Our unlikely hero on this touchdown is an earnest, likeable, hard-working grad student named Grant Archer, a frustrated astrophysicist who's been shanghaied aboard Jupiter's Gold space station to fulfill a ROTC-style public-service commitment. What's worse, this devout young man has been ordered by the New Morality--the American flavor of the conservative religious order that runs Earth nowadays--to spy on some suspicious research involving alleged Jovian life forms.
Bova begins his book with an A.C. Clarke quote: "The rash assertion that 'God made man in His own image' is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths." This tells you pretty much everything you need to know about where this book's going, and who, respectively, will be wearing the white and the black hats (unfortunately, some of the characterizations don't get much deeper). That the central protagonist is both a Christian and a scientist makes for some fertile character development, but Bova's not exactly gunning for God here--he's happy just to blast away at narrow-minded ideologues and other assorted religious fanatics. (But that, of course, is about as easy as making teenagers depressed.) --Paul Hughes
Book Description
Grant Archer merely wanted to work quietly as an astronomer on the far side of the moon. But a coalition of censorious do-gooders who run 21st century America sends him to a research station in orbit around Jupiter to spy on the scientists who work there. What they don't know is that Grant's loyalty to science may be greater than his loyalty to the New Morality.
Customer Reviews:
More Solar System Adventures from Ben Bova.......2007-08-22
Action and adventure are rampant in this "grand tour" novel of the largest planet in the solar system.
The main character in the book is Grant Archer. Recently graduated from college with a degree in astrophysics, Grant longs for the opportunity to study black holes and other celestial matter. However, the powers-that-be have different ideas for him. Required to perform four years of "public service", Grant is sent by Ellis Beech, head of the New Morality, to Jupiter. According to Beech, those people working on Space Station Gold have apparently been searching for signs of life on Jupiter's satellites as well as Jupiter itself. This does not sit well with Beech and the New Morality, for they believe that any form of life outside of earth is "godless". Beech is sending Grant to spy on the members of Space Station Gold and report his findings to the New Morality. To make matters worse for him, Grant is newly-married, and will now be without his wife for six years. Dejected, Grant accepts and begins the long journey to Jupiter.
After traveling for a year, Grant finally arrives at Jupiter, where he immediately meets Egon, who is the personnel director (at least for this week). Besides meeting Egon, Grant is also introduced to Lane O'Hara, a stunningly beautiful woman who is one of the scientists studying the possibilities of life existing on the planet. But Zhang Wo, the director of Space Station Gold, is the one who really gets Grant's attention. Their relationship is icy at best, but as the story goes along, the two bond and become friends. Meanwhile, Grant is introduced to the rest of the Jupiter team: Zeb, Irene, Quintero, Buono, Uhara, and Krebs. Earlier, a probe was launched to penetrate the clouds of Jupiter and plunge into Jupiter's ocean to see if any life existed there. The mission was a failure. Now, a new mission is being planned, and Grant is to be one of the crew. Will this mission succeed, or will it fail like the previous one? Will life be discovered in Jupiter's ocean?
In keeping with the tradition of his other novels, Ben Bova has created an exciting story containing action and intrigue. Perhaps the strongest point of Bova's writing is his character development. Each character in this book is well-developed, and the reader can bond immediately with them. From the chilly Wo to the somewhat apprehensive Archer, Bova has developed characters that the reader can truly relate to. The story itself is very well-conceived, and the action is non-stop.
I recommend this book very highly. I've read others from Bova's "grand tour" series, and this book is as good as any I've read so far. If you're a fan of good science fiction, then don't miss Bova's "Jupiter. Highly recommended.
One of Bova's Best - A Science Fiction Masterpiece.......2007-06-25
Ben Bova is the last writer of the John W. Campbell Jr. mode. That is to say, a writer who takes plausible scientific principles and applies them to characters who must take action to resolve a clear conflict. He thus writes best about engineers, astronauts, explorers. He also writes well about politics and commerce (businesses operating in outer space, for example). But JUPITER (like VENUS) is an extraordinary achievement and has all the "sense of wonder" that's oftentimes missing in current science fiction. Lately, most sf is overladen with one trope after another, one sci-fi conceit or gimmick after another with no care to the evolution of characters in a scientific environment. JUPITER places several characters in believable circumstances with a few discoveries along the way. I've read this book three times now and it still works its wonders on me. Most writers, when they're dead and gone, will be remembered for one or two books or stories. I think JUPITER and VENUS will be among those books by Bova that will remain classics. Highly recommended!
No sublety, SciFi of the lowest order.......2007-03-09
I love scifi, but I'm at a loss to explain the success of Bova's books. His writing is predictable and often repetitive, his plots are loose, and his characters are flat. His technology is contrived, and thinly explained. This book hits you over the head with his philosophy on science versus religion, and instead of asking interesting questions on that front, resorts to near lecturing using the unispired device of character thought monologue. About halfway through this book I lost interest.
Beyond Life As We Know It.......2006-08-20
On the second stop in Ben Bova's Grand Tour of our solar system, we explore the mysteries of the planet Jupiter-the largest gas giant in the system. Though we have a good starting idea of what type of planet Jupiter is--a massive ball of gas that rotates at a high speed, with bands of clouds circling the upper atmosphere and a giant, centuries old hurricane called the Red Spot that could swallow Earth itself. We also believe that Jupiter has a liquid metal hydrogen center surrounding a small rocky ball. Most likely, Jupiter is a failed companion star to Sol that never reached enough mass to ignite; a potential companion star that has a few of its own worlds circling it, including Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, and Io...each with its own mysteries to be solved.
In "Jupiter", young, astrophysics graduate Grant Archer has his eyes set on studying black holes from the moon for his graduate studies; newly married, Grant must serve out four years of Public Service to the state for their generous funding of his education, and what better way, Grant believes, than this. But, the state, which is controlled by the New Morality, has other ideas for Grant: as a spy on Space Station Gold circling Jupiter where scientists are defying the state's desires and studying life on Jupiter's moons and in Jupiter itself. This study of extraterrestrial life has the potential of challenging the New Morality's view of reality, and they don't like it at all. Grant--a believer, but not a Zealot--is miffed at the idea, especially since there is no astrophysics research being conducted at Jupiter; a complete waste of his talents and time he believes. But, Grant has no choice, Public Service is Public Service; and if he can find out what the New Morality wants to know quickly, then maybe they will ship him back to the moon where he belongs.
What Grant is yet to learn, is what role he will ultimately play within the secretive space station and its mission of discovering what the large shapes moving around inside of Jupiter's world spanning ocean are...and are they intelligent?
Ben Bova weaves a tight, straight forward tale about a mission to the heart of Jupiter where our understanding of fluid dynamics are incomplete when it comes to the dynamics of a gas atmosphere that subtly becomes liquid ammonia-laced water without a distinct boundary. Bova speculates on the potential of a gas giant like Jupiter to support life--both microscopic and large and intelligent. I have recently read a few books that bring in gas giant life forms into the storyline, but "Jupiter" tackles the topic head on.
Unlike some of the more multi-layered space opera being crafted today, Ben Bova is a bit more old school; and, that is not a bad thing. It is a nice change of pace to read a good book about space exploration that is a simple adventure tale while tackling our understanding of our solar system and the universe at large. And, I enjoyed what is also a simple moral tale as well, where a young self- absorbed grad student grows up and discovers the difference between right and wrong without the help of a "New Morality".
A Scientist and Believer.......2006-08-15
Jupiter (2001) is the second SF novel in the Planet Novel series, following Venus. In this volume, Grant Archer graduated with a degree in Astrophysics and expected to spend his two years of Public Service at Farside Observatory studying black holes. His wife would be serving with the Peacekeepers on Earth, but he should be able to spend his furloughs with her. Then the New Morality changed his Public Service tour to four years on Thomas Gold station orbiting around the planet Jupiter.
Grant appeals his assignment through New Morality channels to regional director Ellis Beech. There Grant is told that something unusual is occurring at the station and that he is to report any such suspicious actions to Beech. Grant is a Believer, but he doesn't fancy himself as a spy. However, he realizes that Beech could easily assign him to some obnoxious manual labor job and starts agreeing with the director's complaints.
After more than a year in transit, the rundown freighter Oral Roberts finally docks at Gold station. In the boarding tunnel, Grant notices an asymmetrical feature on one side of the torus that he doesn't recognize from his study of the station diagrams. Then he is met by Egon Farland, given a brief tour, and shown to his compartment.
As soon as he can, Grant tries to discover the purpose of the strange arrangement, but the computer gives him a message stating that the subject is not for public dissemination. After he tries several other ways of tracking down the object through the computer, Grant is summoned to the station director's office and told that he has no business trying to access such information. Zhang Wo declares that he has made a bad start on the station and directs him to report to the security office.
Lane O'hara, the current security director, is a beautiful woman who renders him speechless in admiration. In her initial conversation with Grant, Lane is vibrant and convivial, but soon displays a stern demeanor as she conveys the official briefing. After completing the formalities, she sends him to the personnel director, who turns out to be Farland. When Grant displays his puzzlement, Egon informs him that each of the scientific staff temporarily fills the administrative roles in the Jupiter system, thus allowing more scooters -- i.e., scientists -- on the staff and reducing the number of beancounters.
Almost all the scooters in the system are studying the various moons. However, both Lane and Egon are assigned to the Jupiter study group. Grant soon meets others is this study group: Zeb Muzorawa, Irene Pascal, Frankovich, Ignacio Quintero, Patti Buono, Kayla Ukara, and Christel Krebs. He also learns that five members of this group will be going below the clouds of Jupiter in the ship that he had first seen from the boarding tube. Little does he know that he will be one of them.
Director Wo is devoted to finding out whether the lifeforms spotted in the first dive of the saucer-shaped ship are intelligent. He has imposed strict security because the danger from Zealots in the New Morality and other like groups. Such Zealots take "Man was made in God's image" as their manifesto and they would assassinate anyone who tries to prove otherwise.
This novel continues the struggle between the fundamentalists in political power and the scientists who search for new lifeforms in the universe. Unfortunately for the fundamentalists, the scientists keep finding new indications of life within the solar system. Since these Believers depend upon the products of science and technology, how can they prevent the scientists and technologists from following their own agenda?
Logically speaking, fundamentalism is based on the most primitive of worldviews and belongs in a primitive society. Global warming killed off much of the world population and fundamentalism was acceptable to the survivors. However, population controls are not acceptable to most primitive societies and only caused resentment among the descendants of these survivors.
With a growing population, survival itself has once again become dependent upon technology. Now the fundamentalists are caught between the rock of their own beliefs and the hard place of group and individual survival. Compromise becomes a necessity, yet the Zealots are not compromisers.
Recommended for Bova fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of planetary exploration and moral dilemmas.
-Arthur W. Jordin
Average customer rating:
- Good and creepy
- I gravitated towards this book
- One time, I read a Tess Gerritsen book...and nothing happened
- Not her best work
- quite believable and well written sci-fi..
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Gravity
Tess Gerritsen
Manufacturer: Pocket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Bloodstream
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Harvest
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The Apprentice (Jane Rizzoli, Book 2)
ASIN: 0671016784 |
Amazon.com
Tess Gerritsen used to be a doctor, so it comes as no great surprise that the medical aspects of her latest thriller are absolutely convincing--even if most of the action happens in a place where few doctors have ever practiced--outer space.
Dr. Emma Watson and five other hand-picked astronauts are about to take part in the trip of a lifetime--studying living creatures in space. But an alien life form, found in the deepest crevices of the ocean floor, is accidentally brought aboard the shuttle Atlantis. This mutated alien life form makes the creatures in Aliens look like backyard pets.
Soon the crew are suffering severe stomach pains, violent convulsions, and eyes so bloodshot that a gallon of Murine wouldn't help. Gerritsen brilliantly describes the difficulties of treating sick people inside a space module, and how the lack of gravity affects the process of taking blood and inserting a nasal tube. Dr. Watson does her best, but her colleagues die off one by one and the people at NASA don't want to risk bringing the platform back to earth. Only Emma's husband, a doctor/astronaut himself, refuses to give up on her. As we read along, eyes popping out of our heads, all that's missing is one of those bland NASA voices saying, "Houston, we have a problem--we're being attacked by tiny little creatures that are part human, part frog, and part mouse."
Other examples of Gerritsen's controlled medical horrors: Bloodstream, Harvest, and Life Support. --Dick Adler
Book Description
Now former physician and New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen expands the scope of her landscape of terror in an elegantly crafted, thoroughly menacing new medical thriller. A young NASA doctor must combat a lethal microbe that is multiplying in the deadliest of environments: space.
Emma Watson, a brilliant research physician, has been training for the mission of a lifetime: to study living beings in space. Jack McCallum, Emma's estranged husband, has shared her dream of space travel, but a medical condition has grounded and embittered him. He must watch from the sidelines as his wife prepares for her first mission to the International Space Station.
Once aboard the space station, however, things start to go terribly wrong. A culture of single-celled organisms known as Archaeons, gathered from the deep sea, is to be monitored in the microgravity of space. The true and lethal nature of this experiment has not been revealed to NASA. In space, the cells rapidly multiply and soon begin to infect the crewwith agonizing and deadly results.
A recovery attempt ends in catastrophe; the NASA shuttle crashes, and the space station is left dangerously crippled. Emma struggles to contain the deadly microbe, while back home, Jack and NASA work against the clock to retrieve Emma from space.
But there will be no rescue. The contagion now threatens Earth's population as well, and the astronauts are left stranded in orbit, quarantined aboard the station -- where they are dying one by one....
Customer Reviews:
Good and creepy.......2007-09-28
This one pulled me in and kept me awake late into the night with its vivid descriptions of a creepy biohazard aboard the space shuttle and International Space Station. The book also has one of the best descriptions of a space launch this side of Michener's Space and Wolfe's The Right Stuff. The combination made this book a 5-star winner. Highly recommended.
I gravitated towards this book.......2007-07-08
I am a reader of sci-fi and horror books. I love action, adventure and humans battling creatures. I didn't pick up this book for the "medical suspense," I picked it up for the "Alien" vibe I got from the synopsis. And I am pleased to inform you that if you're more like me then you will not be disappointed with Gravity.
The book is said to be a mix of "Apollo 13" and "ER", but I'd say it's more like a cross between "Outbreak" and "Alien". It's basically about this mysterious virus that unleashes itself among 10 astronauts aboard the International Space Station. How did it get aboard the ship? Is this an experiment? bioterrorism? a mistake? The virus is extremely deadly, and extremely unheard of so nobody will allow the Astronauts to come home. The astronaut's loved ones will fight for their return not knowing that this virus could wipe out mankind if it falls into the wrong hands.
The book is very well written, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi and action-adventure thrillers as well as the medical novels.
My only minor complaint is the latest paperback cover art with the body under the white sheet...umm they're in outer space!
One time, I read a Tess Gerritsen book...and nothing happened.......2007-05-23
Tess Gerritsen's novels were always second- or third-tier for me, something I'd get around to eventually after reading everything of priority on my list. At last, however, I was forced into my lower tiers for a school assignment, and so I picked a comfortable spot in Starbucks and dove into GRAVITY.
A mind-numbing experience in boredom ensued. The book opened with a bang, something I prefer in my fiction, so I thought all was gravy. And then the second chapter busted straight out of the gate, and I thought I'd died and gone to fiction lover's heaven. But something curious happened next: The second chapter was a hoax. Never happened, at least, not in the way it first appeared. I immediately docked Gerritsen points for false conflict. Hoping she wouldn't repeat this error, I kept reading.
But it proved to be more of the same. The first chapter that came on like gangbusters? Never referenced again until late in the book, when the action really did start heating up. But by that time I was too disengaged from the story because of all the hurry-up-and-waiting Gerritsen had put me through. And that's GRAVITY in a nutshell: False conflict after false conflict intermingled with melodramatic love scenes. It all made me feel like something was happening, when in truth the story had stalled like Apollo 13 on the launch pad during a hurricane.
It's not that Gerritsen is necessarily a bad writer; on the contrary, she had plenty of extremely vivid visuals throughout, some thrilling and scary moments, and a steady narrative hand that showed promise as a suspense author. But she too often telegraphed the surprises and undercut the suspense with boo scares. I might give Gerritsen another chance, but not anytime soon. If you want real suspense, read INTENSITY by Dean Koontz instead.
Not her best work.......2007-03-11
I'm a huge Tess Gerritsen fan and this is probably the first one that didn't put me over the top. I was fascinated by the space station information, but certainly there was some dramatic license taken. Especially the "rescue" seemed implausible. While the medical backdrop is usually what I like best about Ms Gerritsen's books, this one was, pardon the pun, a little out of this world.
quite believable and well written sci-fi.........2007-02-09
This is one of the best and well written sci-fi thrillers I have read. Good thing about this is its almost believable. Though the esoteric nature of the subject makes the story more believable I have to accept that its a well written story with a well thought out plot. Great work from Gerristen. To give an idea how much I liked it, I took the public transport instead of my car to work for few days so that I can read the book during commute :)
-Santhosh.
Amazon.com
Imagine yourself in a decaying space station far away from the atmosphere you never realized you needed so badly, not knowing if the next malfunction would kill you or merely keep you busy. Dr. Jerry M. Linenger experienced just this and describes his harrowing but ennobling five months aboard Mir in Off the Planet, a memoir that evokes the excitement of living every day as a life-threatening adventure. Linenger's very personal writing style draws the reader into the story quickly, breezing through his childhood, Annapolis training, medical school, and selection as an astronaut, then moving quickly to the Mir assignment and its aftermath.
Linenger isn't shy about sharing his opinions. Chapter titles like "Broken Trust" and "An Attempted Coverup" show his feelings about the bizarre relationship between the crew and mission control that may have kept him and his Russian comrades in constant danger. He also heaps praise on his fellow crew members and family for their strength and perseverance throughout the mission--between communication difficulties, the cloud of doubt surrounding the station's systems, and problems like fires and toxic fumes, it's a wonder anyone survived with their sanity intact. The full-color pictures accompanying the text add further insight into life aboard Mir. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
“An engrossing report.”—Booklist “Vividly captures the challenges and privations [Dr. Linenger] endured both before and during his flight.”—Library Journal One of the most gripping space survival stories of the 20th century is now available in paperback. Few episodes in man’s exploration of space can compare to Off the Planet—Dr. Jerry Linenger’s dramatic account of space exploration turned survival mission during his 132 days aboard the decaying and unstable Russian space station Mir. Not since Apollo 13 has an American astronaut faced so many catastrophic malfunctions and life-threatening emergencies in one mission. In his remarkable narrative, Linenger chronicles power outages that left the crew in complete darkness, tumbling out of control; chemical leaks and near collisions that threatened to rupture Mir’s hull; and most terrifying of all—a raging fire that almost destroyed the space station and the lives of its entire crew.
Customer Reviews:
Honest report on life on Mir.......2007-09-30
Unexpectedly, the best book by an astronaut I have ever read. Utterly honest, detailed but not too much, Linenger certainly had "the right stuff". Brilliant, adaptable and a jock, he survived 5 months in an unreliable, uncomfortable Mir space station, and got along very well with two pairs of Russian Cosmonauts, after "learning" Russian in a 5-week crash course. He gives the lowdown on Russian competence in the space program, the political reason for funneling US funds into joint space activity, the excessive control of by Russian ground crew of their cosmonauts. Much is as expected for Russians long living in a repressive, loveless society. True, the poverty of the Russian Republic would make anyone difficult.
Descriptions of ordinary lavatory functions, repair of every imaginable device on the Mir, all of which broke down, and details of docking, undocking, and returning to Earth on a Space Shuttle were more complete than any other I have read. Details of bone density loss, odd effects of Earth gravity and other bits were seen by me for the first time. For me "Off the Planet" was far superior to the classics such as First on the Moon by Armstrong, Collins & Aldrin (too sanitized), "Return to Earth"? by Aldrin (too personally focused, but good), or "Last on the Moon". Only "Apollo 13" compares, but is too sanitized.
My only gripe is that the scientific experiments on which so much time and money were spent do not come in for any description at all, nor any refs. to their publication, or Principal Investigators. Minor gripes were an occasional ambiguous antecedent, pride in contributing to lowering the fat content of Navy diets (on p7; utterly discredited by "The Cholesterol Myths" by Uffe Ravnskow, 2000; "The Modern Nutritional Diseases" by Ottoboni, 2001; "The GReat Cholesterol Con" by Anthony Colpo, 2006; and many others. See http://www.health-heart.org/acceuil.htm). On p9, canned tuna is healthful, but Minute Rice is not for the carb-sensitive among us. Twice, p78 and 189, "hydrolysis" of water is used instead of the correct "electrolysis".
A Fine Astronaut Memoir of the Strife-Filled Shuttle-Mir Program of the Mid-1990s.......2007-03-23
During the middle part of the 1990s NASA and the Russian Space Agency engaged in a set of cooperative missions that resulted in nine Space Shuttle-Mir link ups between 1995 and 1998, including rendezvous, docking, and crew transfers. Jerry Linenger was one of the NASA astronauts sent to fly on Mir, serving there between January 12 and May 15, 1997. This book recounts his experiences training for this mission, including the difficult time he spent at the Cosmonaut training facility at Star City, as well as the mission itself. As he noted about the Russians at Star City, "the goal of helping cosmonauts and astronauts better prepare for a mission was not a shared goal. Making money off the Americans seemed to be the overriding consideration" (p. 43).
A centerpiece of this book is the exceptionally difficult crises on Mir while Linenger was aboard. The first took place on February 24, 1997, when Linenger and his fellow crewmembers fought a fire caused when an oxygen generator in Kvant 1 malfunctioned and ignited. While the fire burned for only about ninety seconds, the crew was exposed to heavy smoke for five to seven minutes and donned masks in response. Linenger had been in the Spektr module working on his computer when he heard Mir's master alarm go off. He shut down his computer--in case the power should go off--put on some protective gear, and rushed as best he could in his weightless condition to the scene of the accident. They all realized that the fire was serious, it could jeopardize the station and their lives, for it blocked access to one of the Soyuz spacecraft needed for return to Earth. Crewmembers extinguished the fire with foam from three fire extinguishers, each containing two liters of a water-based liquid. The fire was not small. Burning in all directions in the microgravity of the space station, the oxygen from the generator fueled hydra-like flames up to three feet long. Periodically, said Linenger, bits of molten metal from the oxygen generator went splattered the bulkhead. Once the fire had been contained they started purging the atmosphere of the smoke, and Linenger, a physician, examined the other members of the crew to ensure they had not been injured. The crew wore masks and goggles until an analysis of the Mir atmosphere ensured that they experienced no serious health risk.
The fire foreshadowed a series of problems aboard Mir during the spring and summer of 1997. Oxygen generators broke down, the automatic docking system malfunctioned, various types of equipment both great and small interrupted the normally monotonous activities, the station's orientation system broke down, the power system failed when the solar arrays lost their position toward the Sun, and leaks in the Kvant-2 cooling system forced numerous repairs and seemingly endless fussing to keep it running. It appeared that the Mir crew, including Linenger, spent the majority of their days repairing the space station. They gingerly positioned Mir in relation to the Sun so that they could control temperature on various parts of the station. The environment on Mir was uncomfortable, and the crew complained about it.
Linenger believed that Russian mission control failed to inform the crew about the status of their station. He expressed nothing but praise for his fellow crewmembers for their strength and perseverance throughout the mission. Even with communication difficulties, a cloud of doubt surrounding the station's systems, difficulties with mission control, and fires and toxic fumes, the crew worked relatively well under very difficult circumstances.
Linenger tells his story with verve and style, and not a little humor, but that that barely hides a cynicism aboiut the whole effort. He concluded, "That the shuttle Mir program is primarily a political rather than a technical endeavor is obvious to anyone working on it or familiar with it" (p. 113). He also notes that the Shuttle/Mir program was essentially a form of foreign aid by the Clinton administration to Russia using NASA's space exploration money rather than funds appropriated through the various foreign aid programs of the United States. He concluded: "the U.S. government perceived that engaging the Russians in a cooperative space undertaking was reason enough to stick by Mir. Or perhaps having a means for our government to funnel millions of dollars in foreign aid to Russia under the guise of `rent money' so the United States can send astronauts to Mir is a valuable political stratagem" (p. 248).
In many ways this is a fascinating book, pulling back the curtain on the Shuttle/Mir cooperative program between the U.S. and Russia in the mid-1990s.
Great story, but too much ego..........2006-07-01
When you see members of the author's family adding book reviews to this website which attack other reviewers (as you can see here on the reviews for this book) you know something is wrong with this book - it doesn't need defending if it could stand on its own. Having read this book, I can see why the family is being overprotective and jumpy. What people have written here is true - this is an amazing story, obscured by the overpowering ego of the writer.
I hope the author had the integrity to call off his family, as they embarrass him here with such posturing. I recommend reading this book and judging it on its own merits - it really is an amazing tale.
Interesting but horribly written.......2005-10-25
If you read past this highly egocentric astronaut's explanations why he's so great it's really interesting. But actually it's a book that tells a story of someone who takes the American living standard as a measure for everything, thus he becomes amusing when he tells you about Russia, like a person who never set foot outside of an American military base.
I can't recommend the book despite a nice stories of fire, etc.
Better than I expected.......2005-07-20
Several years ago, I read Brian Burrough's book DRAGONFLY, which described the travails of the shuttle-Mir program in 1997. Many of the major figures in DRAGONFLY are presented "with warts and all," especially astronaut Jerry Linenger. DRAGONFLY portrays Linenger as petulant and antisocial -- a man more interested in exercising and carrying out his experiments than helping his fellow crewmates battle the daily problems aboard the space station. I found the book highly informative, and I gave it a solid four stars out of five.
Armed with this advance portrayal of Linenger, I was almost itching to dislike him as I read his account of his mission in OFF THE PLANET. The first 60-70 pages did nothing to dispel what I already felt I knew about him. He is intensely self-centered and resume-driven, even boasting about the number of "doctor" titles that should precede his name.
But his approach is more straightforward when he reaches orbit at the start of his mission to Mir. He shares a good deal of hard-won experience about long-duration space travel, a lot of which is a first for any astronaut autobiography. He's especially adept at explaining the medical idiosyncrasies of spaceflight, since he's a practicing MD.
According to Linenger, the mission's problems of disharmony were with the ground controllers in Moscow and not amongst crewmembers. He says mission control was often part of the problem instead of part of the solution. Some of this can be attributed to the terrible air-to-ground communications, which often rendered crew relations with earth untenable. But mission control also maintained a puppetmaster's approach to managing their crews, which was often counterproductive and at times downright adversarial. Still, if Linenger had a better camaraderie with his crewmates than his aloof portrayal in DRAGONFLY, this book doesn't quite reveal it.
The book's strongest passages come from the mission's crises -- a fire on February 23, 1997 that raged for 14 agonizing minutes, and a close near-miss of an unmanned cargo spacecraft during a docking attempt. (After Linenger's stay, another docking attempt resulted in a collision with Mir that forced the crew to close off the Spektr module to save their lives.)
I expected Linenger's tone to be more defensive, as if responding indirectly to Burrough's book. But Linenger is quite matter-of-fact, and doesn't come across as someone looking for excuses or a record to set straight. He's not very gossipy, and he rarely points fingers, and I liked that about him.
At times, I found Linenger's writing a little too breezy, and I would have liked some stretches shared with more detail. His prose also has an annoying tendency to jump around in time. He often follows event descriptions with post-flight commentary that really belongs at the conclusion of the book, so the writing appears somewhat unpolished.
I can recommend the book for what it is -- a very rare autobiographical account of an astronaut's long-duration space mission. Manned spaceflight can learn from Linenger's insight and also from his faults. For now, the book is in a class almost by itself, even though it doesn't set the bar very high. We should see a new standard if we ever see the accounts of Shannon Lucid, Michael Foale, or even the beleaguered Mir commander Vasily Tsibliev. I look forward to their stories.
Amazon.com
On Basilisk Station (or "HH1" as it's known to the faithful) is the first installment in David Weber's cult hit Honor Harrington series, which has charmed the socks off schoolgirls and sailors alike. Honor--the heroine of this fast-paced, addictive space opera--is a polished, plucky bulldog of a naval officer, part Horatio Hornblower, part Miles Vorkosigan, part Captain Janeway, and with a razor-clawed telepathic cat thrown over her shoulder for good measure.
The series' kickoff puts a giddy Commander Harrington at the helm of her first serious starship, the HMS Fearless. But her excitement quickly fades--political maneuvering by top brass in the Manticoran navy has left her light cruiser outfitted with a half-baked experimental weapons system. Against all odds (just the way Honor likes it), she still manages a clever coup in tactical war games, a feat that earns her accolades--and enemies. The politicians she's offended banish her to a galactic backwater, Basilisk Station. But that outpost soon proves to be a powder keg, and it's up to Harrington and the Fearless crew to thwart the aggressive plans of the Haven Republic. A perfect mix of military SF and high adventure--if you enjoy your tour, re-up with HH2, The Honor of the Queen. --Paul Hughes
Book Description
Honor Harrington in trouble: Having made him look the fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her. Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station. The aborigines of the system's only habitable planet are smoking homicide-inducing hallucinogens. Parliament isn't sure it wants to keep the place; the major local industry is smuggling, the merchant cartels want her head; the star-conquering, so-called "Republic" of Haven is Up to Something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system. But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They've made her mad!
This
special limited edition includes an excerpt from the next
Honor Harrington best seller, At All Costs (hitting bookstore shelves November 2005)!
Customer Reviews:
A Fantastic Military Sci-Fi story!.......2007-10-02
From the beginning the plot and the pace of "On Basilisk Station" was set and the story picks up and never stopped holding my interest. Honor Harrington is assigned to a large space command. Basilisk Station is the end of the line in the Navy - only those that have brought discredit to the Navy are sent there. But in Harrington's mind, all she believes is that she is being punished for doing her best in a very difficult situation. I was expecting a so-so read, not a great book, but was I pleasantly surprised, for this novel was fabulous - I couldn't put it down. If you enjoy military Sci-Fi I would recommend this book. So Long.
Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Honor Harrington, she of the unsubtle name is in one of those stiff
upper lip type of space militaries. She annoys someone politically, and
basically gets sent to Coventry. To influence female readers, perhaps,
Weber gives her a companion, basically, a cat that is more intelligent
than those annoying beasties. Somewhere between that and Steven Brust's
Jhereg, Loiosh, but not as clever or fun as that flying lizard.
Her Coventry is Basilisk Station, and the ship she is given has an
experimental weapon, that may or may not work, and no-one really
actually knows how to use it in combat yet.
Fairly close to melodrama, but entertaining enough.
On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington) BOOK 1.......2007-08-19
At this point I have finally completed reading all the books in this series (fourteen I believe). If I had known then what I know now, I would not have started with book one. I would have read the last four first. The reason being, is, the last four books contain novelettes. These novelettes tell about characters that are only touched on in the first ten books. They are really good background stories. Anyway, I throughly enjoyed all of the books. It was hard to put the books down at times. I just had to read through the total action scene.
Good story.......2007-08-04
Good story. A bit predictable, formula-ish but fast paced and fun. Main characters are well thought out and engaging. Some others though, are "window dressing" for the plot. Books get better as the series continues. This is a pretty good intro for a very good series.
Honor Harrigton: Excellent Surrogate for Miles Vorkosigan/Admiral Naismith fans........2007-07-10
I'm a tremendous fan of Lois McMaster Bujold and her Miles Vorkosigan space adventure stories. When I realized Lois was evolving away from writing thrilling Miles Vorkosigan military SF Space Adventures to a more `parlor mystery' genre, I started looking for a series of books to fill that void.
Lois' fantasy stories don't meet that need, so on Amazon's and Amazon reviewers' recommendations, I took a chance at David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
`On Basilisk Station', the first of the Honor novels, was just what I was looking for-- an admirable hero, an exciting story, and a writer up to the task of filling that `Admiral Naismith Void' I suffered from.
Honor Harrington is a good, sensitive, and strong character. One who may not be confident in her romantic or interpersonal skills, but isn't afraid to kick ass and take names when she has to.
Weber does a decent job in fleshing out the supporting cast, and does especially better than Lois M-B `s portrayal of the bad guys. He excels in his action sequences--- you really can't put the book down once you get started with one of those. OBS' plot is better-than-average, crawling with spies and subterfuge.
Weber may not write witty dialogue as well as Lois, but few do. And I'd be unreasonable to expect my Miles void to be filled completely.
I'm glad I found Honor Harrington and David Weber. I look forward to countless hours of enjoyable reading and interesting storytelling in the books to follow.
Book Description
Providing a foundation for space planners and anyone interested in human settlement in the solar system, this book theorizes about the near future, when the heretofore significant steps of humankind—traveling to the moon and building space stations—will be dwarved by new progress. Scholars and scientists raise and answer such questions as Why does space matter to us? What will ordinary life be like in space? and What will our homes be like on Mars or the Moon? This collection of findings by professionals documents important research, laying the bricks for space-faring civilizations and even consults future space-dwellers—kids—for their visions. Working from the assumption that humankind has a biological need to explore and improve the quality of life, the wide variety of contributors successfully argue that space as a future human habitat is not simply possible, but manifest.
Customer Reviews:
Disappointment.......2007-04-24
This is not an example of writing that will get people enthusiastic about space travel. It will put them to sleep first. It appears to have been slapped together by someone with minimal editorial experience. Even the illustrations were amateurish and the copy I received was misprinted.
Beyond Earth: A Worth While Read.......2007-03-17
I'm a real space enthusiast. As an avid reader of sciene fiction and space science fact, I loved this book. The book covers the gambit of subjects and really makes you think about what our future in space can and will bring, if only we can just focus on it. It focuses on age old questions like "can space travel be done?", "why should space travel be done?", and "how should we do space travel?" The book also discussed areas that you would never think about in regards to space, such as space law, space art, and space sociology. In my opinion, this book is well worth it.
A few of our future in space.......2007-01-12
I found the book to be exciting and it will be good for people who have an interest in what's just around the corner. Whole new areas of study like remote viewing, space law, robotics, evolutionary psychology and more. I found the optimism of the human sprit refreshing and exciting.
It is not a book for one sitting, rather it is a book best taken slowly, however the reader can move about the book as their interests dictate as most chapters stand on their own in content.
The authors all have very impressive backgrounds in the fields discussed and show excitement and hope about possibilities. I often wonder how we can let people know the we are on the edge a major revolution in space, that change is coming, and it is being driven by the same hopes and wishes that motivates all explorers past and future. The space race is on and many never heard the gun go off. This book is great for catching up and even getting a picture about what is ahead.
The Science Faction.......2006-08-07
The Science Faction
Reviewer: James A. Wakefield, Jr., Ph.D. (California State
University, Stanislaus)
Stephen Hawkins recently said that we must colonize space in
order to survive. This conviction is shared by all the contributors
to "Beyond Earth: The Future of Humans in Space." Bob Krone, Ph.D.,
Kenneth Cox, Ph.D., and Langdon Morris of The Aerospace Technology
Working Group have compiled and edited a series of readings frankly
designed to make this conviction more prevalent. Although not
argumentative in tone, the book is likely to undermine factions that
(a) react to space exploration by placing higher priorities on other
human endeavors as well as factions that (b) distract from space
exploration by proposing cheaper ventures limited to, say, the Moon--
been there, done that! (With apologies to JFK, we should not be
distracted with calls to "ask not what your country can pretend to do
for you.")
With the word future in the title, the book had to begin by
asserting that "This book is about science, not science fiction."
Indeed, only a few chapters hint at the role of science fiction in
forming children's visions of space, defining the meaning of space,
setting space exploration as a public goal, and sowing inspiration
among the explorers, and the bulk of the book deals with functional
aspects of organizing people and machines to explore space. The
motivation for the book is not so much to provide a handbook for
space exploration as to allow the political "science faction" to
support the goal of space exploration by providing material to answer
both (a) the reaction faction and (b) the distraction faction.
For the reaction faction, important human endeavors that support
(and are supported by) space exploration receive ample coverage in
Beyond Earth. Chapters on leadership, law, governance, cooperation,
ethics, art, music, education, ideology, the "meaning of the
heavens," the soul, and human evolution are featured in the section
on "Human Factors in Space" which comprises roughly half of the
book. The answer is that space exploration "ought" to be done for
our own good, although a delightful child drawing on page 130
recognizes that our ability to explore space does not imply that we
should. "Is" still does not imply "ought."
The distraction faction is answered in about a third of the
book, "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Management for Space,"
with chapters covering resource management, risk taking, commercial
development, and exploration operations. These chapters (as well as
others in the book) take on the hard issues of whether long range
space exploration can be done. The answer, as might have been
guessed, is that it can--and not because it "ought" to be done (that
would be science fiction)--but because the technology "is"
available.
The most important contribution of this book is bringing
together a variety of answers from the science faction in one
source. Those interested in human factors (as is this reviewer) may
have difficulty with some chapters outside this area (as did this
reviewer), and it is likely that readers with different interests
will have difficulty with other chapters. This wide-ranging book, in
its entirety, is clearly not a book for every reader. Various parts
will inform most readers, and as a statement from the "science
faction" (The Aerospace Technology Working Group), it is valuable to
us all.
Book Description
An inspiring, deeply moving testament to the timelessness of paternal love
Dr. Jerry Linenger's 132 days aboard the decaying Russian space station Mir were beset by power outages that left the crew in total darkness and tumbling out of control, poisonous chemical leaks, and near collisions with space debris. Most terrifying of all was a raging fire that, in a matter of minutes, nearly destroyed the station and all on board.
It was with that last event, when, with the crew cut off from the world below and locked in a battle for survival, Linenger's letters to his son changed from a routine chronicle of daily events into the eloquent, deeply moving serial narrative presented in Letters from Mir. Combining wise meditations on life, destiny, and the future of space exploration with wryly playful observations on everyday life, this openended conversation between a father and his beloved son is as contemporary as the latest Mars Explorer mission, yet as timeless as the paternal sentiments they express.
Download Description
"Dr. Jerry Linenger's 132 days aboard the decaying Russian space station Mir were beset by power outages that left the crew in total darkness and tumbling out of control, poisonous chemical leaks, and near collisions with space debris. Most terrifying of all was a raging fire that, in a matter of minutes, nearly destroyed the station and all on board. It was with that last event, when, with the crew cut off from the world below and locked in a battle for survival, Linenger's letters to his son changed from a routine chronicle of daily events into the eloquent, deeply moving serial narrative presented in Letters from Mir. Combining wise meditations on life, destiny, and the future of space exploration with wryly playful observations on everyday life, this openended conversation between a father and his beloved son is as contemporary as the latest Mars Explorer mission, yet as timeless as the paternal sentiments they express."
Customer Reviews:
...to Mr. Keller........2002-12-09
As a friend of Jerry's, I feel I should correct something. (Not that he or his record need defending.) We do in fact speed up to reach higher orbits. This puts energy into the orbit, resulting in a higher/larger orbit. The resulting average velocity is lower, but we got there by increasing velocity from a lower orbit. Conversely, to decrease altitude, we slow down. Again, average velocity is higher, but we got there by slowing down (taking energy out of our orbit).
Also, if the detail in Jerry's letters is too much, it seems inconsistent to then say it is a "glaring error" to use 7 million pounds of liftoff thrust instead of 6.6...
A Bit Odd in Places.......2002-11-04
Jerry Linenger was the fourth NASA astronaut of a total of seven who served aboard the Russian space station Mir. His mission lasted from January 12, 1997, till May 24, 1997 giving him a total of 132 days in space. At the time, this was the longest duration flight of an American male. During his stay, Jerry Linenger became the first American to conduct a space walk from a foreign space station and in a non-American made spacesuit. He and his two Russian colleagues also performed a "fly around" in the Soyuz spacecraft, undocking from one docking port of the station, manually flying to and redocking at a different location. While living Mir, Linenger and his two Russian crewmembers faced numerous difficulties, the most severe fire ever aboard an orbiting spacecraft, failures of onboard systems and a near collision with a resupply cargo ship during a manual docking system test. These tales and many others are recounted in his other book, "Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir."
In his latest offering, Dr. Linenger recounts these events as well as many others, using personal letters sent, via e-mail, to his 14 month old son and a few to his wife and mission control. It is quite clear from these letters that he was very proud of his young son, missed him and his wife a great deal and that he felt extremely isolated and alone. Several of the letters I found very refreshing, such as the need to honest (especially in this day and age); however, I also found many of the letters to be rather strange. Dr. Linenger goes into a great amount of detail about the equipment on the Mir, such as heat rejection system and the carbon dioxide removal system. I doubt most high school students could understand what he was trying to say. Maybe it's me, but if I were going to write letters to my toddler son, I would keep the technical descriptions simple. I would want him to be able to read my letter say by the time he was ten. The very technical sections within the book also take away from the general tone of the book of his isolation, missing his son, wife and the planet Earth. One letter to mission details his concern about safety, almost a foreboding of things to come on the next mission with Michael Foale.
I also found two glaring errors in the book. First, the liftoff thrust of the shuttle is not 7 million lbs, but 6.6 million lbs. Second, his description of the orbital mechanics is described incorrectly. He states, "We go faster in order to get up higher. As we slow down, our orbit lowers." The exact opposite is true. The lower the orbit the higher the velocity and the higher the orbit the slower the velocity. For example, communication satellites that are essentially stationary over the Earth (one orbit per day) are at an altitude of 23,000 miles. The space station, which orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, is at an altitude of 250 miles. As an astronaut, he should know better.
In conclusion, if you want to know what happen to Jerry Linenger aboard Mir, read his other book, "Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir." If you want to know how he felt orbiting the Earth and his feelings of isolation, get this book.
Download Description
From international telephone network gateways to direct broadcast home receivers, today?s broad range of ground systems and devices require satellite communication engineers and business managers to have a broad and sound understanding of the design and operating principles of earth stations and ground control facilities. The book is the first to explore the delivery end of the satellite link and its relationship to delivery of services. Authored by a leading authority in the field, the book provides you with the knowledge you need to devise your own approach to implementing and managing earth stations and the overall ground segment. You find practical guidance in an array of critical areas, including: preparing requirements, performing preliminary analyses, reviewing hardware designs, managing the introduction of the overall ground segment, and more.
Customer Reviews:
A great primer for the satellite industry..........2001-01-25
Having been in the satellite industry for over 20 years, I have been searching for a well-written, compact source book that I can use to bring new operations people up to speed quickly. Bruce Elbert has done a great job of condensing a tremendous amount of technical information into a format that any interested person can easily absorb. I highly recommend this book as a training aid for professionals that need an understanding of how things work in the satellite communications field. It's also a great refresher for people that don't deal with the technology issues on a daily basis.
Average customer rating:
- An engrossing surprise
- Grease is the Word
- Great Sci-Fi graphic novel with a slightly constrained viewpoint.
- An Excellent Work of YA Science Fiction
|
Grease Monkey
Tim Eldred
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Life As We Knew It
ASIN: 0765313251
Release Date: 2006-05-30 |
Book Description
Caught in the crossfire of an interstellar war, our Earth was bombed to flinders--and then repaired. The mysterious alien Benefactors who healed the planet also offered 'uplift' to our dolphins and gorillas. The dolphins turned them down. The gorillas said yes. As a result, we're now sharing our world with language-using, tool-making simians. Tensions are inevitable, in both directions, but it's gradually working out.Decades later, teenage cadet Robin Plotnik has been assigned to Fist of Earth, a defense station high above Earth, keeping watch against further attacks by the interstellar Horde. Robin's a spacecraft mechanic-in-training, apprenticed to Chief 'Mac' Gimbensky, a cranky but basically benign gorilla with issues of his own.Fist of Earth is a challenging place to grow up. Robin and Mac maintain fighter craft for the all-woman 'Barbarian Squadron', which constantly competes for prestige with the other squadrons based on Fist of Earth. Robin's trying to romance a young librarian, and he's far from sure he knows what he's doing. Most of all, he's constantly struggling to figure out his moody, mercurial boss.Then he and his best friend become entangled in a burgeoning scandal over betting on the squadrons' standings. And just when things look like they've hit rock bottom, the worst thing imaginable arrives at Fist of Earth: an efficiency expert from Earth, determined to reorganize Robin's hard-won life, and the whole squadron system, out of existence.Fresh and engaging, crammed with likeable characters and science-fictional inventiveness, Grease Monkey is like a classic 'Heinlein juvenile' in sequential-art mode.Introduction by Kurt Busiek, author of Astro City
Customer Reviews:
An engrossing surprise.......2006-09-12
One would expect a story set in space to be about Humans verses aliens with epic battles and personal loss. Grease Monkey delivers all of that and more, but not in the way one would expect.
There is, of course, the alien threat, but in stead of it being in your face, it is a constant, set in the background leaving one to wonder what would happen should the big battle occur. Imagination for the reader at it's finest. The epic battles are man's classic struggles; man vs authority, finding one's place in the universe, understanding one's self. Themes subconsciously ingrained in all of us, brought to life in what starts innocently, but culminating into moving, emotional events that everyone, of all ages, can relate to. No one dies a heroic or violent death in this collection, but people move on, whether being forcibly removed or leaving to find a better life, each person and their absence affecting us as if our best friend has moved across the country. We know life will never be the same and we can see this effect on the main characters.
The stories are not entirely devoid of cool action and fights though. Well designed Space Fighters engage in trilling dogfights and the occasional punch is thrown because we are dealing with complex, goal driven characters after all. The artwork is top notch, bring us a full spectrum of emotions and swear words are thankfully absent making this a perfect story for everyone.
Grease Monkey is certainly not what you would expect it to be, it's even better.
Grease is the Word.......2006-09-08
Mac is a big gorilla who's in charge of maintaining a fleet of rockets in "Barbarian Squadron," the members of which are all young, strong, buxom women in tight uniforms. Robin Plotnik is a teenage earthling sent out on a yearlong mission into space who has the misfortune to be assigned to Mac's command. The previous employee Mac ate, or so the scuttlebutt has it. Robin is a likeable little fellow who wears his feelings on his sleeve, and he's gullible, so all the old hands on the "Fist of Earth" make him the butt of their practical jokes. But over time, Robin proves his worth, and Mac begins to have strange, comradely feelings for this human boy. They are constantly thrown together, both at work, and at play. Though one is an ape, the other a young man, they share similar interests (of the female variety) and work ethic. As we discover they both had the same kind of overpowering, loudmouth Dads kids cringe from.
Robin falls in love with an attractive young librarian, Kara, but he can't seem to get it together when he's talking with her. Every time he wants to ask her out, he winds up talking about something boring, and this turns her off. If she wanted a dull evening, she might just as well have stayed at home. More to her taste is the black master chef, Jeff Simons, who at least has the sense to give a girl a good time.
Little by little we learn the back story of how apes came to share the intelligence of humans, after a catastrophic alien invasion left only a tenth of the human population alive. A patch of starlight grew into a vision of "Benefactors," higher creatures who guide humans into the next step in their evolution, and they decide to ask the dolphins if they want to get smart too. The dolphins wisely decline. All of this is very thought-provoking and I'm not sure that the cutesy rocketship stuff and the comic love affairs on board aren't overshadowed by this heavy duty, in fact grim plus, exposition always flaring up in the background.
I guess it's for kids because there's no swearing in it. When cursing is indicated, it's done with a zigzag graffiti scrawl that resembles the letter "N" written five or six times. Otherwise Tim Eldred is a master of dialogue and can really do no wrong scriptwise.
Great Sci-Fi graphic novel with a slightly constrained viewpoint........2006-07-05
I have rarely read good science fiction in graphic novel format, and this definitely qualifies; a must-have for anyone interested in this medium.
The story revolves around a young gent doing maintinance on space-fighters. The characters are well drawn and the plots gripping.
On the other hand, the author fails to draw out the female characters as fully as I would like; while I found the drama between the lead and his paramours believable, the women lacked evidence of rich inner lives.
I will certainly pick up the next book, if there is one; given the production schedule so far, I would be surprised if Mr. Eldred gets it out before another decade passes.
An Excellent Work of YA Science Fiction.......2006-06-07
Tim Eldred began work on the Grease Monkey project in 1992 as a project for an audience of one: himself. Thankfully, he found a publisher with Tor in 2004, and now we can all enjoy this wonderfully written and illustrated graphic novel.
The book follows the first year of a tour of duty by Robin, an assistant mechanic assigned to the Barbarian Squadron on the flagship of Earth's space fleet, the Fist of Earth. When Robin first learns that his boss is an uplifted gorilla named Mac, and that Mac's previous assistant departed under supposedly frightening circumstances, he fears for his life. However, Robin soon finds in Mac a kindred spirit--a fellow man with imagination and heart. What follows is a series of short stories of the two's growing friendship set against the larger picture of life aboard The First of Earth, and slowly revealing the backstory of the attack on Earth by aliens and the rebirth and rebuilding with the assistance of the mysterious Benefactors. Throughout it all, Robin grows and matures, experiencing joy and heartbreak.
The storyline is similar to Busiek's Shockrockets, but where Grease Monkey surpasses that book is in heart. This book is bursting with fun and joy. The content is excellently suited for younger readers, and could easily be gifted to a younger relative as a gateway book into non-superhero comics.
On the art, as the project evolved over a decade, the style slowly changes as well. I found this appropriate to the story. As the protagonist of Robin grew up, so too did the artist.
Overall, a highly recommended book, especially for anyone with pre-teens, but enjoyable to adults as well.
Book Description
Skylab is not just a story of space hardware and space science, but also of space explorers and pioneers. Using official NASA documentation and interviews with the astronauts and key personnel, the inside story of Skylab is presented as the story unfolds. An evaluation of the lessons learnt from the programme and how these were, or were not, incorporated into the Space Shuttle and Space Station programme is also offered to present the value of Skylab in the context of the current programme, 25 years after the last crew came home.
Customer Reviews:
All there is...and thankfully it's a good one.......2006-01-19
There aren't many books that focus on the Skylab project. My own memories of Skylab are vague and in the shadow of Apollo, the Viking landers and the Voyager probes how could public perception of Skylab be anything but "underwhelmed"? What a shame. Many thanks and kudos to David Shayler for taking the time to craft such a well written account of an oft overlooked and imminenetly vital contribution to manned space exploration. The text is rife with detail and description that is rarely dull. With little else written about Skylab it is a relief to be able to say that this book is the best and will be difficult to top by anyone aspiring to tackle the subject. For any space buff this is a highly recommended addition to your collection.
A Good Narrative History of the Skylab Program.......2005-01-23
David Shayler has been a prolific writer of space history for the last several years, and this narrative history of Skylab is a notable addition to his portfolio and the historical literature on space stations. From the time of Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy through Robert Goddard, Hermann Oberth, and Wernher von Braun all the spaceflight visionaries believed that a space station was a necessary prerequisite to further human exploration of space. They recognized that once humans had achieved Earth-orbit about 250 miles up, the presumed location of any space station, the vast majority of the atmosphere and the gravity well had been conquered and that humans were now about halfway to anywhere else they might want to go. They could use it as a base camp at the bottom of the mountain or the fort in the wilderness, or use any other similar metaphor, to jump off on explorations of the Solar System. It became the centerpiece of an integrated strategy for space exploration, and found its most sophisticated depiction as a way station in the masterful 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie, "2001: A Space Odyssey."
The first effort in the United States to build a space station was Skylab, launched in 1973 and occupied through 1974, a far cry from the rotating wheel of "2001: A Space Odyssey" but nonetheless a genuine success story. It represented a preliminary space station and was a relatively small orbital space platform that would allow astronauts for the first time to remain in space for months at a time. It would be, NASA officials hoped, be the precursor of a real space station. This is the story that Shayler tells in this fine narrative history.
It used a reconfigured and habitable third stage of the Saturn V rocket as the basic component of the orbital workshop. The 100-ton Skylab 1 workshop was launched into orbit on May 14, 1973, the last use of the giant Saturn V launch vehicle. Shayler is at his best when discussing the dramatic rescue effort that followed, for technical problems developed due to vibrations during lift-off When the meteoroid shield--designed also to shade Skylab's workshop from the Sun's rays--ripped off, taking with it one of the spacecraft's two solar panels, and another piece wrapped around the other panel to keep it from properly deploying. This caused a serious temperature rise inside Skylab that the astronauts had to correct.
In an intensive ten-day period, NASA developed procedures and trained the crew to make the workshop habitable. On May 25, 1973, astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr., Paul J. Weitz, and Joseph P. Kerwin, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in an Apollo capsule atop a Saturn IB and rendezvoused with the orbital workshop. This crew carried a parasol, tools, and replacement supplies to repair the orbital workshop. After substantial repairs requiring extravehicular activity (EVA), including deployment of a parasol sunshade that cooled the inside temperatures to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, by June 4 the workshop was habitable. During a June 7 EVA the crew also freed the jammed solar array and increased power to the workshop.
In orbit the crew conducted solar astronomy and Earth resources experiments, medical studies, and five student experiments. This first crew made 404 orbits and carried out experiments for 392 hours, in the process making three EVAs totaling six hours and 20 minutes. The first group of astronauts returned to Earth on June 22, 1973, and two other Skylab missions followed. The Skylab 3 crew was launched on July 28, 1973, and its mission lasted 59 days. Skylab 4, the last mission on the workshop was launched on November 16, 1973, and remained in orbit for 84 days. At the conclusion of Skylab 4 the orbital workshop was powered down with the intention that it might be visited again.
Following the final occupied phase of the Skylab mission, ground controllers performed some engineering tests of certain Skylab systems, positioned Skylab into a stable attitude, and shut down its systems. It was expected that Skylab would remain in orbit eight to ten years, by which time NASA might be able to reactivate it. In the fall of 1977, however, space agency officials determined that Skylab had entered a rapidly decaying orbit--resulting from greater than predicted solar activity--and that it would reenter the Earth's atmosphere within two years. They steered the orbital workshop as best they could so that debris from reentry would fall over oceans and unpopulated areas of the planet. On July 11, 1979, Skylab finally impacted the Earth's surface. The debris dispersion area stretched from the Southeastern Indian Ocean across a sparsely populated section of Western Australia. NASA and the U.S. space program took criticism for this development, ranging from the sale of hardhats as "Skylab Survival Kits" to serious questions about the propriety of space flight altogether if people were likely to be killed by falling objects. In reality, while NASA took sufficient precautions so that no one was injured, its leaders had learned that the agency could never again allow a situation in which large chunks of orbital debris had a chance of reaching the Earth's surface. It was an inauspicious ending to the first American space station, not one that its originators had envisioned, but it had opened some doors of understanding and had whetted the appetite for a full-fledged space station.
David Shayler tells this story well, but without footnotes. If you wish to read the same story, also well told, but with references to official documents see the official NASA history by W. David Compton and Charles D. Benson, "Living and Working in Space: A History of Skylab" (Washington, DC: NASA Special Publication-4208, 1983).
America's first space station is recalled.......2005-01-17
Everything you wanted to know about Skylab is in this book, and contrary to many opinions NASA didn't just loft three, three-man crews, to this space station to play around with candy and fruit juice.
Probably the most interesting details come early in the book which show how Dr. Wernher von Braun and Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Ala., designed and built Skylab. The groundwork for today's International Space Station was laid in the mid-1960s by the men and women of the Skylab program.
A fair amount of time is spent discussing how Skylab was saved from an untimely demise when it was damaged during launch. It took two crews to get it set up right, but what could have been a failure was turned around to a quick thinking success because of NASA's dedication to this mission. Lessons that can be learned in today's space program if we are going to return to the moon and go on to Mars.
Like all the Springer-Praxis space books this one can be an interesting history and a valuable learning tool. It works either way for the casual or the more intensely interested.
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