Search
Loading
May 6th, 2022
To celebrate National Space Day, Purdue University Press is featuring books on NASA, astronauts, and spaceflight.
The Sky Above: An Astronaut’s Memoir of Adventure, Persistence, and Faith
Looking up at the stars at the age of ten, John Casper dreamed of being a space explorer. The Sky Above tells how persistence and determination led to flying in space, after serving the nation as a combat fighter pilot and test pilot. Despite life-threatening experiences and failures, his spiritual faith was pivotal in overcoming life’s challenges. Through vivid storytelling, the reader rides alongside the author in the cockpit, feeling the fear of enemy antiaircraft fire and the pressure of high g-forces during combat maneuvering. His insider accounts of four Space Shuttle missions vividly describe exhilarating launches, the magical experience of weightlessness, and the magnificent beauty of Earth from hundreds of miles above.
John Houbolt: The Unsung Hero of the Apollo Moon Landings
It was a small group of engineers led by John C. Houbolt who came up with the plan that propelled human beings to the moon and back—not only safely, but faster, cheaper, and more reliably. Houbolt and his colleagues called it “lunar orbit rendezvous,” or “LOR.” At first the LOR idea was ignored, then it was criticized, and then finally dismissed by many senior NASA officials.
Nevertheless, the group, under Houbolt’s leadership, continued to press the LOR idea, arguing that it was the only way to get men to the moon and back by President Kennedy’s deadline. Houbolt persisted, risking his career in the face of overwhelming opposition. This is the story of how John Houbolt convinced NASA to adopt the plan that made history.
Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA’s Record-Setting Frequent Flyer
From the age of ten, looking up at the stars, Jerry Ross knew that he wanted to journey into space. This autobiography tells the story of how he came not only to achieve that goal, but to become the most-launched astronaut in history, as well as a NASA veteran whose career spanned the entire US Space Shuttle program.
Becoming A Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA’s Record-Setting Frequent Flyer
This nonfiction picture book is a children’s version of NASA astronaut Jerry L. Ross’s autobiography, Spacewalker: My Journey in Space and Faith as NASA’s Record-Setting Frequent Flyer, designed for ages 7–12. Told in friendly first-person narration, it represents how Ross followed his dream from rural 1950s northern Indiana to Purdue University and then outer space.
Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom
Unlike other American astronauts, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom never had the chance to publish his memoirs—save for an account of his role in the Gemini program—before the tragic launch pad fire on January 27, 1967, which took his life and those of Edward White and Roger Chaffee. The international prestige of winning the Moon Race cannot be understated, and Grissom played a pivotal and enduring role in securing that legacy for the United States. Indeed, Grissom was first and foremost a Cold Warrior, a member of the first group of Mercury astronauts whose goal it was to beat the Soviet Union to the moon. Drawing on extensive interviews with fellow astronauts, NASA engineers, family members, and friends of Gus Grissom, George Leopold delivers a comprehensive survey of Grissom’s life that places his career in the context of the Cold War and the history of human spaceflight. Calculated Risk: The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom adds significantly to our understanding of that tumultuous period in American history.
Featuring over seventy images from the heroic age of space exploration, Through Astronaut Eyes presents the story of how human daring along with technological ingenuity allowed people to see the Earth and stars as they never had before.
Photographs from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs tell powerful and compelling stories that continue to have cultural resonance to this day, not just for what they revealed about the spaceflight experience, but also as products of a larger visual rhetoric of exploration.
Piercing the Horizon: The Story of Visionary NASA Chief Tom Paine
Thomas O. Paine served as NASA’s third administrator, leading the space agency through the first historic missions that sent astronauts on voyages away from Earth. On his watch, seven Apollo flights orbited our planet and five reached our moon. From those missions came the first of twelve men to walk on the moon.
As robotic missions begin leaving the earth, Tsiao invites the reader to take another look at the plans that Paine articulated regarding how America could have had humans on Mars by the year 2000 as the first step to the exploration of deep space. Piercing the Horizon provides provocative context to current conversations on the case for reaching Mars, settling our solar system, and continuing the exploration of space.
Wings of Their Dreams: Purdue in Flight, Second Edition
Throughout 100-plus years of flight, Purdue University has propelled unique contributions from pioneer educators, aviators, and engineers who flew balloons into the stratosphere, barnstormed the countryside, helped break the sound barrier, and left footprints in lunar soil. Wings of Their Dreams follows the flight plans and footsteps of aviation’s pioneers and trailblazers across the twentieth century, a path from Kitty Hawk to the Sea of Tranquility and beyond. The book reminds readers that the first and last men to land on the moon first trekked across the West Lafayette, Indiana, campus on their journeys into the heavens and history. This is the story of an aeronautic odyssey of imagination, science, engineering, technology, adventure, courage, danger, and promise. It is the story of the human spirit taking flight, entwined with Purdue’s legacy in aviation’s history.
Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind
In the years between the historic first moon landing by Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969, and his death at age 82 on August 25, 2012, Neil Armstrong received hundreds of thousands of cards and letters from all over the world, congratulating him, praising him, requesting pictures and autographs, and asking him what must have seemed to him to be limitless—and occasionally intrusive—questions.
Today, the preponderance of those letters—some 75,000 of them—are preserved in the archives at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind publishes a careful sampling of these letters—roughly 400—reflecting the various kinds of correspondence that Armstrong received along with representative samples of his replies. Selected and edited by James R. Hansen, Armstrong’s authorized biographer and author of the New York Times best seller First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, this collection sheds light on Armstrong’s enduring impact and offers an intimate glimpse into the cultural meanings of human spaceflight. Readers will explore what the thousands of letters to Neil Armstrong meant not only to those who wrote them, but as a snapshot of one of humankind’s greatest achievements in the twentieth century. They will see how societies and cultures projected their own meanings onto one of the world’s great heroes and iconic figures.
A Reluctant Icon: Letters to Neil Armstrong
Artfully curated by James R. Hansen, A Reluctant Icon: Letters to Neil Armstrong is a companion volume to Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind, collecting hundreds more letters Armstrong received after first stepping on the moon until his death in 2012. Providing context and commentary, Hansen has assembled the letters by the following themes: religion and belief; anger, disappointment, and disillusionment; quacks, conspiracy theorists, and ufologists; fellow astronauts and the world of flight; the corporate world; celebrities, stars, and notables; and last messages. Taken together, both collections provide fascinating insights into the world of an iconic hero who took that first giant leap onto lunar soil willingly and thereby stepped into the public eye with reluctance. Space enthusiasts, historians, and lovers of all things related to flight will not want to miss this book.
You can get 30% off all Purdue University Press titles by entering the code PURDUE30 at checkout on our website.
Filed under: PurduePressApril 12th, 2022
In this interview, we talk with author, Purdue alumnus, and astronaut Colonel John H. Casper, (USAF, Ret.) about his forthcoming autobiography, The Sky Above: An Astronaut’s Memoir of Adventure, Persistence, and Faith.
Q: Could you give a brief description of your book?
The Sky Above tells how persistence and determination led me to fly in space, after serving the nation as a combat fighter pilot and test pilot. Despite life-threatening experiences and failures, my spiritual faith was pivotal in overcoming life’s challenges.
Throughout flying stories told in “pilot lingo,” I invite the reader to ride alongside me in the cockpit, feeling the fear of enemy antiaircraft fire and the squeeze of high g-forces during combat maneuvering in jet fighters. I describe exhilarating Space Shuttle launches, the magical experience of weightlessness, and the magnificent beauty of Earth from hundreds of miles above.
Q: What is the goal of your book? What motivated you to write it?
The goal of my book is to tell readers my life story, which is a true adventure of overcoming adversity through dedication, perseverance, passion, and enduring faith to make a lifelong dream and vision a reality. I hope those trying to reach their dreams, whatever they are, will find inspiration; those unsure or challenged in their faith, encouragement.
Q: Military Service is a tradition in your family. You describe a “service before self” family mentality toward your dad’s service as a pilot. Was this mentality impacted by your family’s faith? Conversely, do you think this mentality affected the way you view(ed) and practice(ed) your faith?
Yes, I believe there is a link between my faith and military service, because both ask a person to “serve” something greater than oneself. Christian faith asks you to love God with all your mind, body, and spirit, and to love your neighbor—those around you—as you love yourself. Those in military or government service are serving our country by defending and upholding our foundational values and traditions. Both faith and the military emphasize the idea of serving others, rather than self-centeredness.
While growing up, I watched my grandparents and parents help others as an extension of their faith, and I witnessed their service to our country in both peace and wartime. They didn’t brag about it; they were merely helping those in need or helping our country defeat those who would destroy our way of life. I’m grateful for the strong example they set for me.
Q: Do you have any advice for aspiring astronauts?
My advice to anyone with a dream or vision is to work hard and not be discouraged if you don’t succeed the first time. For most of us, following our passion or dream takes determined, persistent effort over a period of time to reach the goal.
Those who want to be astronauts will need to study hard and perform well in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. NASA also selects a small number of medical doctors in each incoming group. It’s best that you study subjects and work in career areas that interest you or that you have a passion for. Then, if you don’t become an astronaut, you’ll be working in a career field you enjoy.
Q: Do you have any thoughts on what the future of NASA and American space missions might look like? What would you most like to see explored? What challenges do you think NASA and aspiring astronauts will face along the way?
Future missions to the International Space Station, or ISS, will continue as humankind learns how to live and work in space. ISS is a microgravity laboratory with a multi-nation crew (15 nations cooperate) orbiting Earth at 250 miles altitude. The space vehicle weighs nearly one million pounds, has been continuously crewed since 2000, and has conducted over 3000 experiments and technology demonstrations. Because ISS is also valuable as a primary testbed for future deep-space exploration to the Moon and Mars, NASA plans to operate it at least until 2031.
Artemis is NASA’s Moon landing program to learn how to live on other worlds. This time, the goal is to stay by establishing a true outpost on the lunar surface. The first Artemis mission will fly no earlier than June 2022, using the new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft. The mission will be un-crewed to test the rocket and crew vehicle on a 3-week voyage beyond the Moon and back to Earth. Artemis 2 is planned about a year later with a crew of four NASA astronauts on a similar 21-day mission to check out the human support systems in deep space. A lunar-orbiting habitat called Gateway is being built to sustain our ability to explore the lunar surface.
The next step is Mars: NASA’s goal is to land humans on Mars before the end of this century. The commercial company SpaceX also plans to fly humans to Mars. A human mission to Mars is hard because Mars is much, much farther away than the Moon—Mars is 35 to 250 million miles distant from Earth, depending on the two planets’ orbital positions. At their closest point, a trip to Mars takes about nine months with current rocket technology. A round trip could theoretically be completed in 21 months, with three months on the surface to wait for favorable alignment of Earth and Mars orbits before returning.
Future astronauts will face challenges similar to the ones they face today on the International Space Station—reduced or zero gravity, confinement in a relatively small space, isolation and separation from family and friends on Earth, and risk of damage to their spacecraft from micrometeorites. Radiation is the number one threat for deep space missions: ISS is in a low Earth orbit and shielded from most solar radiation by the higher Van Allen belts. However, crews on Moon or Mars missions will be outside that protection and exposed to greater solar radiation and occasional solar flares. Deep space crewed vehicles will require additional radiation shielding to keep the crew healthy.
Q: Is there anything that shocked or surprised you while working on this project?
I was surprised by the amount of time and effort it took me to research, write, and edit even my own memoir, where I knew the storyline! I had written many technical papers before, but crafting a story that interests and inspires readers is another level of creativity and complexity. Someone advised me that producing the first draft was about 50% of the writing process and I found that to be true—editing, condensing, choosing which stories to tell and which to delete, all took enormous amounts of additional time. Choosing a publisher and negotiating a contract required a completely different expertise and I had to learn that skill.
Q: Any comments for the future readers of your book?
If you like to read adventure stories, especially true ones, where the character overcomes odds to reach a goal, you will enjoy this book. If you would like to know more about flying airplanes and flying in space, this book is for you. If you’re looking for a story about spiritual faith helping someone overcome obstacles in life, my story might interest and inspire you.
Thank you to Col. Casper for answering our questions!
You can get 30% off The Sky Above and other Purdue University Press books by ordering from our website and using the discount code PURDUE30.
Filed under: PurduePress