Book Reviews, And The Old Poster On My Wall
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I remember when this felt futuristic. In many ways, it still does.
Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the First Untethered Flight in Space, Bruce McCandless III, 2021.
Bruce McCandless is the astronaut the world knows from an iconic photo that has become shorthand for space exploration – and yet he’s someone who few could name. Floating alone in Earth orbit, face hidden behind his spacesuit visor, his image was everywhere in the mid-80s. It was on my wall when I was a teenager, along with the usual music and movie posters. The movies and musicians came and went, yet McCandless stayed.
But who was he? His son, also named Bruce, attempts to work it out in this engaging and moving biography. It turns out that being hidden behind a silvery visor was quite apt – the author’s late father had a mysterious inner life that was “more Spock than Kirk,” and his passions “sounded more like measurements.” It’s this kind of beautiful, clear description by a talented writer and inquiring son that makes this book come alive.
With a dry, wry mixture of irreverence and love, this book looks behind the stolid exterior of a seemingly unknowable, quiet man and finds – a great deal. Set against the background of world wars, the Space Race, and the endless moves and emotional toll a military life places on servicemembers and their families alike, we learn of a man who seemed to attach more emotional connection to an injured bird than the humans around him. Yet he was at the heart of two historical moments that crossed over from space knowledge to popular culture. He made the first untethered spacewalk, flying free of the shuttle using a Buck Rogers-type backpack he designed, and he also flew the mission that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope.
His son tells us of the real guy behind these public triumphs, who had a frustrating career after being selected by NASA during the Apollo era, watching his classmates fly to the moon, and then having to wait until the space shuttle era, two decades later, for his own first mission. For a guy apparently pigeonholed and sidelined by other astronauts as a “mere scientist,” this book shows how McCandless had as good a share of piloting stories as his jet jockey colleagues – such as controlling a burning Navy jet after losing the back end of it while trying to land on a carrier. He just didn’t care to tell them.
He was an engineer and brilliant tinkering mind behind much more than I realized – even Mars landers. A man who drove to work one day with the moon hanging low in the sky, knowing that when he arrived he’d be talking to two fellow astronauts who were about to step onto the lunar surface for the first time in human history. He was the person with the job of replying to the “one small step” words from Neil Armstrong. As it turns out, he may well have sacrificed his career in the Apollo program and grounded himself for decades simply to allow the Apollo 11 astronauts to complete their priceless and brief excursion on the lunar surface. He made the right call.
I met Bruce McCandless a number of times, and liked his easygoing, welcoming demeanor. But I didn’t know him. It takes a talented author to bring old events to life, and his son’s humor and candor makes me feel as close to knowing him as we could ever get. I almost feel like hanging up my old 1980s poster again.
John Houbolt: The Unsung Hero of the Apollo Moon Landings, William Causey, 2020.
This is a very good book, but also a difficult book to evaluate, because it is not really a book about the legendary aerospace engineer John Houbolt.
Instead, as the author states in his introduction, the book is actually about how NASA chose the method by which humans would land on the moon. There were two strong possibilities: a direct approach with one rocket, or docking multiple rockets in Earth orbit before heading outward. A third approach, of docking and undocking around the moon, seemed too terrifyingly risky for NASA to seriously contemplate at the time. Eventually, however, this third way became recognized as the only method that could get Americans on the moon by the end of the decade.
This book offers an insightful look at the internal wranglings and jostling for power between different personalities and NASA centers in the early days of the space program as this decision was worked out. The benefits and drawbacks of each method are never really evaluated side by side, so I feel the reader never learns quite enough about why each was championed. However, this is outweighed by the personal insights this book relates.
Contrary to the usual vastly simplified story of how Houbolt advocated for lunar rendezvous as a lone outsider, this book shows a much more complex story. Key characters come to life in new ways. Houbolt, it turns out, had presented his idea multiple times to NASA management, and had been quietly championed for a long time by NASA Associate Administrator Bob Seamans. We learn how Wernher von Braun was loved by many outside of NASA, but only tolerated within. Most decisions described in the book involving von Braun seem to have been to satisfy his ego more than NASA’s needs. Similarly, White House science advisor Jerome Wiesner is shown as consistently and persistently on the wrong side of every decision made. When so many space history books of this era focus on the astronauts and missions, it is refreshing to read about the complex love-hate relationships of the managers who made it all happen. These decisions are discussed in other books, but the complexity is related here in refreshing personal depth.
Despite carrying his name as the title, Houbolt remains a relatively minor figure in this book. For example, after the decision of how to go to the moon is made, his life from 1963-1969 is covered in one paragraph, and then we never hear of him again – there is nothing about the remaining 45 years of his life. Projects he was working on outside of his lunar work are often given as lists. A book about a quiet, career-focused engineer, minor as an individual in comparison to the enormous decision he was part of, might not been a gripping read. I think it was absolutely the right decision to focus instead on the vital few years he was in the midst of a drama that changed world history. I only wish the book had been titled differently, instead of marketed as a biography, to save me a lot of confusion as I read early chapters and wondered why John Houbolt kept disappearing for long stretches of the story. Still, well worth a read for those who wonder how NASA pulled off the impossible.