Customer Reviews
A must read - both entertaining and thought provoking. - By: Neal Parkinson, 28 Sep 2008 
I've always been interestedin NASA & the Space Shuttle. I bought this book & read itin less than a week. It's that good I found it hard to put it down!
Mike Mullane tells usin brutal honestly what it is like to be an astronaut. How the fear of a launch will keep you awake at night but then how you would not miss it for the world. The extremes are all there - from the tradegy of Challenger & Columbia, to the absolute joy of beingin Space & looking back down on the Earth. And then there is Mike's sence of humour (of as he calls it - his "arrested development" sence of humour!), which is an absolute joy.
I loved this book from start to finish. It is easy to read even if you have no interestin the space programe. I recommend this to anyone. Fantastic book Mike!
Seat of the pants stuff - By: Dr. J. A. Hiscox, 11 Dec 2007 This is probably the best astronaut autobiography I have read with the possible exception of Michael Collin's book. Colonel Mike Mullane was the first generation of the space shuttle astronauts specifically selected to fly on the machine. His book is a no holds bared account of his time before & at NASA & the courage, terror & perhaps foolhardy nature it takes to ride into space on rocket which basically has no effective escape system. Personally I liked all the anecdotes that are scattered throughout the book, I particularly liked the way he described the meeting of two cultures, scientist astronaut & military astronaut. Having servedin the infantry & being a scientist I can well appreciate the two would not initially get along. As Colonel Mullane describes he was a product of his environment, Vietnam veteran & survivor of a catholic school. However, the moral of his story & life education is the respect he developed for women who want a career & also people who are prepared to put their life on the linein pursuit of a common goal which is unobtainable to most. This is one of my selected `toilet' books & it is well thumbed companion. Friends who come to stay always get addicted when reading it & basically only emerge when nagged by their wives, who then get addicted to. Well worth the read.
A no holds barred account of 80s NASA - By: Ed Sexton, 01 May 2007 
I bought this as i wanted to know all about spaceflight & the workings of NASA from someone who had actually been there & i got just that despite the personality of the author.
Mullane recounts his life before NASA, his yearnings for space & then all his time at NASA. His intense enthusiasm for space drives the narrative. He gives a gritty & honest view of what it was like to work at NASA including internal politics & competition for flight places. Specifically his detail on waiting to fly, sitting on the launch pad & beingin space was the part i was most excited to read.
However it does come across immediately that Mullane is (and freely admits) a chauvinist, extremely childish & living up to a gung-ho, yee-ha 'Top Gun' stereotype of American fighter pilots. The regular comments & jokes about his other colleagues, pranks & attitude to the world were really tiresome & quite shockingin places. This continues throughout & although doesn't stop this from being a great read is a continual annoyance.
If you are interested in the US Space Program, then read this book. - By: John Boyes, 04 Sep 2006 There are a good number of astronaut biographies available. Inevitably there is fair amount of repetition sometimes straying towards telling you what SHOULD have happened rather than what DID happen. But Mike's book is different. This is the story of what it's all about being an astronaut: nuts & bolts, human weaknesses, bureaucracy, chauvanism, fear, elation, reality. But above all the need to fly into space. If you were to read only one astronaut biography, then this should be it.
the Bill Bryson of space travel - By: P. G. Calisse, 03 May 2006 I've been waiting for this book since I was a kid watching the first landing on the Moon on TV. It is something completely different from what I read till now on the spacce project. To say that Mike Mullane is the Bill Bryson of space travel is to underestimate him. You will not only appreciate the story, the inside view on the US space program (including the permanent mismanagement). You will also learn about a real dream love: the one with his wife, Donna. What is really outstandingin Mike is the chase for the "ultimate honesty". He constantly refuse the "politically correct" approach & goes straigth to the core of our relations to space travels, dreams, technology, relation with... women, with our boss & with... the girl of our dream,in this case another Astronaut tragically deadin the Challenger accident. The last pagesin particular are surprisingly good & poetic. I would never expect something like that.
Thanks, Mike, for your honesty.
