Astronaut Mullane Comments on Riding Rockets

[trailrider]

I, too, have read the book and can't recommend it STRONGLY ENOUGH! I also agree that it gives more of an insight into the ordinary things involved in becoming and serving as an astronaut than any other of the books I've read, or even the astronauts with whom I've talked in person (mostly briefly, and certainly not on the basis of a close confidant)! Some of his anecdotes will leave anyone who served in the military nodding and going, "Yup!" <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />I, too, found that the bookstores have ordered VERY LIMITED copies for stock. Too bad!<br /><br />Thanks, Mike!<br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Aries! Ad Astra!<br /><br />

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Prior to this my favorite space book had been Linenger's "Off the Planet."<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Thanks for the tip! I found this book in my local library and finished it in one day, damn good read! I would also recommend it to anyone else.<br /><br />I was shocked to read how much Mir had dilapidated, sounds like it was very close to being a deathtrap. And as for the Russian ground control .....<img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

"Did Linenger give any details on what caused him to panic during a Mir EVA"<br /><br />Roger. He wrote a chapter on it.<br />He suffered from a sensation of falling. It happened when he was on a telescopic pole thing and as he moved away form the craft he became aware of the speed they were flying at. He calls it "terror" which I think sounds worse than "panic". He also noted that the guys fixing the Hubble ST felt this as well. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[shoogerbrugge]

It would be an interesting to have a book with the different experiences of the foreign long duration astronauts on MIR. Some of them were able to work and live with the cosmonauts at great terms while other had little positive to say about their stay on MIR. It would be intruiging to see these different opinions and their reasons.<br /><br />

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">The Russian on that EVA with him claimed he had to slap JerryLinenger on the side of his helmet to make him let go of a hand hold.</font>/i><br /><br />If someone put that into a movie, we would probably comment with a sarcastic, "Yeah, right. That would never happen." Some things you just can't write.</i>

 

[trailrider]

"Did Linenger give any details on what caused him to panic during a Mir EVA"<br /><br />Roger. He wrote a chapter on it.<br />He suffered from a sensation of falling. It happened when he was on a telescopic pole thing and as he moved away form the craft he became aware of the speed they were flying at. He calls it "terror" which I think sounds worse than "panic". He also noted that the guys fixing the Hubble ST felt this as well."<br /><br />Sounds like a "failure" of "breakoff phenomenon". Breakoff phenomenon occurs when your frame of reference shifts from a farther base reference to a local one. When you are sitting in an aircraft, spacecraft, etc., you do NOT feel as if you are far above the earth because your brain tells you that the "local" floor is solid ground. Even in an orbiting spacecraft, most people apparently have breakoff take hold because they don't have a major frame of reference to the Earth. (Most pilots I know get acrophobia if they are up on a high ladder because their brain tells them the "local frame of reference" is the ground, not the rungs of the ladder!) The one time when I experienced it was riding as a passenger in a commercial airliner, and looked straight down through a hole in both layers of a double cloud layer, and could not only see both, but the ground as well! Gave me a three-dimensional depth of field. Never had it before or since in an aircraft.<br /><br />I suspect that being OUTSIDE of a spacecraft, in such an orientation that one got the 3-D effect with the Earth as the base reference, instead of the spacecraft would do it, as apparently it did! Obviously, the thing to do would have been to have immediately re-directed attention to the closer spacecraft, and physically blocking out the Earth! Of course, I've never been up there...dang it!<br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Aries! Ad Astra!

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

Thats pretty much how he describes it in his book. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>