Customer Reviews

Getting Off the Planet: Training Astronauts (Apogee Books Space Series)

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I presented a segment of Dr. Randall Chambers's "Getting Off the Planet, Training Astronauts" at a recent meeting in Austin TX. On page 52, Dr. Chambers calculates the travel time between the Earth and Mars as 30 hours at 2G force. This is twice the force experienced by humans on many roller coasters -- but only for seconds.

Dr. Carl Clark rode the centrifuge for 24 hours in 1959 under Dr. Chambers's supervison. Forty years later, Dr. Chambers reported at the Mars Society annual program meeting the results of the 1959 experiment.

Five years later, President George W. Bush announced plans to send humans to Mars.

The human body can tolerate a 2G ride to Mars if the equipment is available to produce it. Just like the temperatures in Alaska are often colder than Mars, many people are unaware how humans can adapt to Mars with suitable protective garments.

Humans live in Fairbanks at temperatures of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit for weeks at time. Summer temperature on Mars are warmer than Alaska. In both situation, human need protective clothing to venture outside if you want to remain alive.

On to Mars!

Dr. Ali Fant

I am a huge Apollo fan and try to read and absorb everything I can about the astronauts, the ships, the missions, everything. I was excited to see this book because I thought it would offer a unique insight into the actual details of the training programs. I was sadly dissapointed. Although the book description above lists this as being a "detailed and humorous documentary of the early days of the space race" there is very little detail. In fact, the book seems to contain basically 2 recurring points: space travel is hard; the astronauts trained using a centrifuge. The author repeats these 2 facts almost as a mantra thoughout the book, chapter after chapter. If you are looking for an essay on the usefulness of centrifuge training on astronauts in order to help overcome the difficulty of traveling into space, which is quite difficult, but the centrifuge made it easier for the astronauts that took on the difficulty of space travel and used the centrifuge, then this is the book for you. If you are looking for a book on the variety of programs used to train the astronauts, then perhaps you should look elsewhere.

Dr. Chambers was on my dissertation committee for my PhD in 2007----he died later that year. I have a personally autographed copy of this book and it is one of the books that I dearly treasure. It was a pleasure and a blessing to know this man, and I miss him very much. He was truly a pioneer of space exploration and the application of human factors to space travel in a plethora of ways. This book presents a history of problems that had to be overcome to put men in space. There are many fantastic photos of early NASA technology in this book as well. There's no way any one book can capture the brilliance of this man, what he contributed to science and space exploration, and what a wonderful person and teacher he was. I was lucky----he was my friend.

Ever since I was a littel kid I have had the picture of Dr. Randall Chambers wearing the Mercury pressure suit on my wall. The picture has been a motivtion and is signed is dated 1961 and says it he is the son of Frank E. Chambers my grandfather is Joesph m and great greandfather is George B I want to know if we are related. Larry Chambers Larry@lchambers.com

While hundreds of books have documented the technological challenges overcome by the engineers of the early space programs this book describes the physiological, psychological, and sociological challenges faced by researchers who helped send the first humans into space. The book provides a personal account of a dedicated scientist and how his research (along with his colleagues) was used to design and test vehicles and equipment necessary to sustain human life outside the Earth's environment. No, this is not a text book, encyclopedia, or chronicle of the astronaut training programs. But if you take the time to enjoy this short book you will get an overview of the critical work performed by these unsung researchers and the daunting challenges they overcame. You will also come to realize that for all the engineering and technological accomplishments of the space program, the human astronaut remains the most complex (and least understood) system onboard even the most modern spacecraft.

Excellent book. It covers everything you need to know about astronaut's training back in the 60's.

Getting off the planet is a quirky book that fills the space for those who wonder "How did they originally select the astronauts?"
I enjoyed this book. Those of us that really follow the manned space programs from the beginning, often wondered how it has been done and only a few articles and one other book told how they were selected- from the MD's point of view.
The cover shows the rigors of what had to be done in the Good Ole Days- before the Lisa Nowak incident!
No one knew what would happen to the human bodies in space- could they breathe, bat their eyes, swallow, or even poop? Things that we take for granted today, were real unknowns in the early days. What would it be like to walk on the Moon? To land ANYWHERE in the world...and survive?
This is a well written and illustrated document that you will read over and over every time you read "A man on the Moon", or "The Right Stuff".

If you like that....you will enjoy this one