Customer Reviews

Almost Heaven: Women On The Frontiers Of Space

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an interesting book with a lot to say on the subject of women astronauts. On the whole, the events and the people involved in them are very well summarized, far better than many other books in fact. There are some wonderful little vignettes into how the 1978 women astronauts were integrated into the Texas social scene, which were very well observed. Pat Cowings, often overlooked as the first woman to undertake serious astronaut training directed by NASA (though she was never selected as an astronaut), gets her correct place in history at last. It also puts the FLAT medical tests in their correct place as a minor footnote in space history. It lists the womens' movement accomplishments and the changes they brought as interesting background, not allowing the politics to overtake the human story. The misreading of S. Christa McAuliffe's respected place in Concord's educational community hits a minor jarring note, but overall Holtzmann Kevles is a very accomplished writer, gets the facts straight and tells an interesting story very well.

Having said that, I really do wish that "friends of the author" would not make postings on these pages and pretend that the book is error-free. Wishing the mistakes weren't there does not make them disappear. The copy I picked up (from a book store, not a pre release copy) has all the errors that other reviewers have been kind enough to post here for the edification of the prospective purchaser (and, let's hope, the author and publisher). A simple read would find them. Just as examples, the misinformation on Lebedev is on page 87, the misdating of the first shuttle launch on page 94, the error about the last woman to Mir on page 163, spelling NASA's name wrong on page 252, Cobb's name wrong on page 253, Chaffee's name wrong on page 221, and the howling error of the wrong date of the Apollo 11 moon landing in the book's very first paragraph. I noticed another mistake also, on page 141 - Helen Sharman, like all other cosmonauts, was fitted into her space suit before her bus ride to the launch pad, not afterwards as Holtzmann Kevles believes.

I hope that the author's friends have the courage to tell her what needs correcting, and not continue to defend the indefensible. Fiction writing is allowed to play with events, and even history is open to interpretation. Holtzmann Kevles' theme, her message, is worthy and dead on. However getting basic names and dates correct (and they are mostly subjective errors of fact, not simple "typos" here ) in a history book is, I believe, essential. Save your money for a corrected second edition, assuming the publisher does the right thing.

Let me start by adding that I just received my copy of this amazing story a couple of weeks ago, and was awed by it. Quite a wonderful read about a most amazingly hidden aspect of the space program.

Okay, several have previously stated that there are no major technical errors in the book. On page 46, when describing Skylab, she notes that the pace station was 17 cubic feet, divided into two separate levels. Since the trunk of my Jetta is 13 cubic feet, I decided to check this out with NASA. Skylab had a habitable volume of 12,700 cubic feet. That is a major error that can not go unnoticed.

If this book is republished, I hope this type of minor error gets corrected. If not, poor editing will continue to diminish an otherwise important topic and marvelously crafted tome.

I am surprised just how much is wrong in this book. I am even more puzzled by the unquestioning support given to it by luminaries such as John Klineberg and Mary Ellen Strote. While a writer on health and fitness topics should not be expected to have a thorough knowledge of space history and know how many errors this book contains, I would have thought that Klineberg, former director of Loral and the Goddard Space Flight Center, would have read it a little closer and spotted the many errors. It's puzzling to see how many glowing reviews this book is receiving despite its deep flaws.

Previous reviewers here are correct in saying that this book is full of factual errors. Holtzmann Kevles says the Vostok spacecraft needed 'piloting on re-entry,' when in fact the world's first spacecraft could be and was flown automatically. She says that Yuri Gagarin's father was a farmer, when he was in fact a carpenter. The book repeats the myth that the Soviets gave up their manned lunar program in 1968, when in fact that is long-disproved propaganda. She states that 'fire destroyed a Soyuz' on the launchpad, when in fact the event was a launch abort that left the Soyuz spacecraft and crew untouched. She also says that this event 'set fire to the Baikonur Cosmodrome' - not only untrue, but highly unlikely considering the hundreds of square kilometers that the cosmodrome encompasses. Holtzmann Kevles also suggests that all three of the Skylab astronaut crews 'became generally hostile to ground control and needed help managing their anger.' This is a gross exageration of events that only affected the third crew, and had nothing to do with the first two crews, who had an excellent relationship with Mission Control. Holtzmann Kevles also says that cosmonaut Lebedev's diary only became public after the fall of communism in 1991 - a puzzle to those of us who have the English-language, US-published book version from 1988 on our bookshelves. She says that STS 40 was a 'lower number' than STS 51-L, confusing two totally separate ways of designating shuttle flights. The Mojave desert is misspelled as "Mohave." Mars Confectionary is mistakenly called "Mars Candy Company." She states that Dennis Tito "did some scientific research" in space, when in fact he flew as a space tourist and looked out of the window for the whole flight, for his personal entertainment. She says that the genitalia was removed from the male and female figures on Pioneer 10 - not true, as a look at the male figure would easily tell her. She states that, at the time of the book being finished, NASA had flown 'approximately 400 people since 1962' - not true, the figure would be correct only if it included all the Russian cosmonauts who had flown as well. She says that listeners in California would be able to hear the sonic boom of a spacecraft trying to land in Florida - completely untrue.

Holtzmann Kevles gets the Challenger disaster cause wrong also, saying "an explosion ripped through the orbiter" and "the entire shuttle exploded." The shuttle did in fact not explode - the hydrogen in a separate, external fuel tank was what exploded, meaning the shuttle was subjected to severe aerodynamic loads, that broke it into pieces. In short, being twisted into the wind at high speed was what broke the Challenger apart. To overdramatize the deaths of seven astronauts in this way is irresponsible, especially given Holtzmann Kevles' unwarranted slur on Christa McAuliffe's teaching reputation elsewhere in the book.

Holtzmann Kevles gets a good deal wrong about the "Mercury 13" story too - something that in a book on women in space is unconsciable. It begins with Kevles assuming the women were called the Mercury 13 in 1961 - when, in fact, that name was a media invention at least 15 years later. Holtzmann Kevles also states that NASA was asked to pay for the tests - they were not, they were simply asked if they had a requirement for the Navy to carry out the tests for them. The author also says that Cochran's congressional testimony startled Cobb and Hart, when in fact they knew full well what was coming. The author also says that each of the women 'had logged many hours piloting private jets' - in fact, none of them had any jet piloting time.

Holtzmann Kevles makes other sweeping, factually inaccurate and unsupported statements that distort the truth. The book says that 'America's astronauts disparaged Soviet space travel' in the pre-Apollo era, when in fact the astronauts were always diplomatic and complimentary of the achievements of their Cold War rivals. In short, this book is almost good - it is certainly a well-written, very absorbing read in style - but there is so much wrong with it on a factual basis that it is becomes "National Enquirer"-like in its integrity as a history book.

Well, it's getting a mixed reaction (from me and, by the look of these reviews, from other readers) and I think that is quite understandable. I bought the book last week as the premise sounded interesting - but I had also taken the time to print out the reviews on this site. I am glad I did. I don't know if there is more than one edition out there, but the one I picked up, which has the exact same cover as the picture on this site, and came from a public bookstore, had all the errors in it that the other reviewers listed below. In some places, Holtzmann Kevles had spelled a name right, in other places got it wrong - the same with dates - so that a quick flick through the book would not have revealed them. But I was pleased and grateful that those other reviewers had found all those errors, as it allowed me to note all the page numbers and create my own 'errata sheet' for my copy.

I found the book a fascinating read - it really told the story of women in space very, very well - and Holtzmann Kevles seems to have interviewed some very interesting people who rarely made public pronouncements. She has dug behind the scenes to get some very insightful information on some very little-known areas. It's an important book for anyone interested in space history.

Having said that, it is let down by those incorrect facts. Hopefully someone can relay the mistakes the two reviewers took the time and trouble to add to this site (thank you!) to both Holtzmann Kevles and the publisher, so that they can be spared further embarrassment if a second edition is ever published. They are all there, and not too hard to find if they read the book again. Many are in the timeline in the back.

I must agree also, that while this book is on the whole fair to Christa McAuliffe, there is that one sentence that seems out of place and, frankly, mean. Luckily it is just one nasty point in an otherwise very even-handed book.

While this book is a great read, with some very interesting viewpoints on some little-known NASA and Russian insider politics, it is full of mistakes which mean it quickly becomes impossible to know which parts of Kevles's research to trust. The factual errors begin on the first paragraph of the prologue - the very first paragraph in the book - where Kevles states the Apollo 11 moon landing took place on July 18th. It did, of course, take place on July 20th, something that ANY space author should be able to get right. This is the kind of basic, easily-checked and unforgivable error that some who held a chair position at the National Air and Space Museum should be ashamed to have in their book. Other similar, basic mistakes abound. Kevles says the first shuttle launch took place in 1982, when it was in fact in 1981. For Challenger's final flight, she lists Ron McNair as sitting upstairs in the shuttle, when he was in fact on the lower flight deck. For the Columbia disaster, she says that McCool was a mission specialist - he was in fact the pilot. She misspells Apollo 1 astronaut Roger Chaffee's name as 'Chafee,' and Jerrie Cobb as 'Jerri.' She says Roberta Bondar was 'one of two' Canadian astronauts selected in 1983, when she was in fact one in six. The remains of shuttle Challenger were not recovered in water only up to 73 feet down, as Kevles states - in fact, recovery took place in waters up to 1,300 feet deep. She says Resnick and McAuliffe "perished in space' when, in fact, the Challenger disaster took place only 15 kms. up, easily visible from the ground and lower than many aircraft flights. Kevles says that Helen Sharman was the first woman to visit any space station, despite her coverage of Savitskaya's mission to a space station earlier in the book. She says that Andre-Deshays was 'the fourth and final woman to visit Mir' - when, in fact, SEVEN women visited Mir after her (Lucid remained after her, and Ivins, Kondakova, Eileen Collins, Bonnie Dunbar, Wendy Lawrence and Janet Kavandi all visited the station long after Andre-Deshays on shuttle flights to Mir.) She also says Andre-Deshays was 'the only west European women to have flown in space' - forgetting Helen Sharman. She even gets NASA's name wrong, calling it the 'National Aeronautic and Space Administration,' instead of 'Aeronautics.'

The lowest point of the book, in my opinion, comes when Kevles says that Teacher In Space Christa "McAuliffe had never been considered the best teacher in Concord, or even an especially popular one." There is NO evidence given to support this outrageous statement in the book, and in fact it runs counter to EVERY statement made by those who did work with McAuliffe. She was not considered the best science teacher of NASA's finalists, but was considered an outstanding teacher by her students and school district, with innovative classes that everyone loved. Kevles' mean-spirited and untruthful statement here is an unnecessary slap in the face of this deceased teacher, and her living relatives and friends (I can only hope they do not see the book).

The author has made a great attempt to write an outstanding book here, and it is very close... but she doesn't seem to have much in-depth knowledge of the subject, and it really shows. She writes very well, and has had unprecedented access to some of the most important figures in space history. But her lack of general knowledge of the space program means that the book is filled with dozens of elemental mistakes which would have been easy to check. In a few places it makes undignified swipes at the personalities of dead people without any evidence to back the claims up. Hopefully a second editon can be brought out that can revise these many, many issues.

I've just read the paperback version of this book, with all the comments people posted here about errors in the hardback printed out and by my side (thank you for posting them). It looks like they were all fixed for the paperback edition - great to see when a publishing house takes notice like that.

The revised paperback version of this book is an excellent, absorbing read which I highly recommend!

Kevles is a remarkably good writer. Both this book and "Naked To The Bone" are amongst the best in making science writing accessible, readable, and relevant to social mores. She's damn good.

But I ended up throwing this book across the room a few times in frustration. The fact checking was, frankly, lousy. There were so many elementary mistakes (the date of the Apollo 11 moonlanding wrong in a SPACE book, fer crissakes?) that it ruined an otherwise compelling read.

I am one of those who suffered through reading an error-filled hardback copy of this book, and was immensely pleased to see a paperback edition come out with major revisions and corrections. So, firstly - avoid the hardback, read only the paperback edition.

This is an intriguing book with a lot of interesting things to say about women in the space program, both in the past and in the present. A good amount of accurate social context is given, making it stand out from some other books on the subject. There are still some subjective judgements made that I disagree with, but that of course is the author's opinion and perogative, and Kevles' arguments are always interesting.

It still doesn't beat my all-time-favorite when it comes to the subject of American and Russian women hoping to fly in space in the 1960s. That book is the excellent Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of S), which in two great chapters blows away all the competition.

Nevertheless, read this book too for some interesting - and sometimes surprising - insights.