Customer Reviews

"Live from Cape Canaveral": Covering the Space Race, from Sputnik to Today

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

 

 

When I first heard about Jay Barbree's "Live from Cape Canaveral," I had high hopes for it. I expected it to be a memoir of one of radio and television's longest-serving and most-respected space reporters, a man who covered America's space program "live from Cape Canaveral" virtually since its inception. I looked forward to reading the "untold" story of the developing relationship between the space program and the media, back in the pre-cable, pre-satellite days of black-and-white television and rabbit-ear antennas. I eagerly anticipated gaining new insights into the astronauts and into other space reporters of the early days--men such as Walter Cronkite and Jules Bergman--based on Mr. Barbree's personal knowledge. I expected to read previously unpublished, behind-the-scenes revelations about the nation's space missions from someone who had "been there and done that" since day one.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed on all counts.

"Live from Cape Canaveral" is basically nothing more than an extremely superficial summary of American manned space missions. And I do mean superficial. The entire Skylab flight program, for example, gets literally one short paragraph, with absolutely no mention of the near-loss of the orbital workshop on launch, or the heroic and successful efforts of three astronaut crews to restore it to habitability. In "Live from Cape Canaveral," Mr. Barbree does not take advantage of his position, his longevity as a spaceflight journalist or his alleged "insider" knowledge to add anything to the literature of American spaceflight. He passed up a golden opportunity to contribute worthwhile new information to the historical record in favor of simply re-hashing the same stories that have been told countless times before. And, as other reviewers have correctly pointed out, there are many inexcusable technical and factual errors from someone who claims to be the "go-to guy" for spaceflight questions.

"Live from Cape Canaveral" never lives up to its intriguing premise. While it is well-written and fast-paced, it could have been so much more. If you're a serious space enthusiast, I recommend you give it a pass--there's nothing here you haven't read before.

This book initially appears to be a fun, enjoyable, exciting read - a romp through the golden age of spaceflight. For those who believe the back cover blurb, they might never be the wiser.

However, it's all misleading surface gloss.

There are some fundamental problems with this book. For example:

- Barbree was not there for many of the conversations he pretends to remember verbatim

- One of the photos is a known fake

- Many of the crucial and easily-checked facts are incorrect.

So, if you read this book, file under "fiction." Or, for a far more reliable and satisfying read, read the excellent For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut

I am extremely disappointed by the quality and accuracy of the writing in this book - but with some further research my feelings now go beyond that, in that I feel publishing may actually be counterproductive, perhaps even dangerous, to history.

There's an interesting and prominent story in the news this week by science writer Andrea Thompson, "Fake Photos Alter Real Memories," suggesting that digitally altered photos not only give false impressions to those who were not there for historical events, they can even alter perceptions and memories of history for those who were there.

So why does Barbree take the irresponsible step of using a realistic-looking, but faked photo of people on the surface of the moon, with no notation made in the book that it is a fake?

There are people out there actively looking for "evidence" that humans never went to the moon, that it was all a hoax, and trying to pick apart the real photos. Using faked photos is hardly going to help with this issue. In fact, it is likely to make it worse.

And this is aside from the many previously-discussed errors of fact in the writing that Barbree scatters throughout this badly-researched book.

Barbree used this fake photo before in the first edition of another of his books. Space experts noticed, and apparently the publisher pulled it from subsequent editions. Why Barbree would try and pull the same trick again is puzzling, having been caught once. Collins, the publishers, have a reputation to uphold, and if I were them I would recall this book before it does any more damage to history. There are well-intentioned Amazon reviews being posted here suggesting this book should be given to high schoolers, when, in fact, this kind of fakery and bad writing should probably not have been published, and certainly never used as part of any educational efforts.

The space program was exciting and vivid enough of a story without trying to pump up the excitement level by resorting to inaccurate anecdotes and fake photos.

I assumed that Barbree's experience in witnessing so much of our space program first-hand would give him some special insights, but this is not the case. There's not much here that can't be found in other, better books about the Space Program, and this book has about as much depth as a bunch of 3 minute TV news stories strung together. Although I enjoyed many of Barbree's anecdotes about the astronauts, I found that the author frequently got the message and the messenger confused, inserting himself in the narrative far too often. It's clear that Barbree was at best a journeyman reporter, so reading his accounts of events from his own life are utterly dull compared to the historic events of the space program. I found little interest in reading about Barbree's heart attack or his quest to become a journalist astronaut in a program that was ultimately cancelled. He likes to name-drop too, telling us what great guys Chet Huntley and Walter Cronkite were, and trying to impress us with the fact that he met Jimmy Carter a few times. Barbree spends an entire chapter making a big deal about the fact that HE was the first reporter to go public with the information that a faulty O-Ring was the cause of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, as if being first on the air with a report has some sort of historic importance. (No doubt it was important to HIM on the day, but in the perspective of history, the information is far more important than who reported it.) Regardless, he didn't uncover the O-Ring story in some sort of investigation on his part, nor did he expose it as a cover-up; he simply got two engineer/scientists to tell him this information before they told anyone else. More troubling is an account regarding the Apollo program. Astronaut Gus Grissom went to Barbree and told him that the Apollo spacecraft was seriously problematic due to it being built by shoddy contractors. He asked Barbree to investigate and expose this. And what did Barbree do? Not much. Barbree excuses his own inaction by saying that serious journalistic boat-rocking simply wasn't done back in 1966. (Apparently, Barbree never heard of Upton Sinclair.) As we all know, Astronauts Grissom, Chaffee and Young tragically perished in the Apollo 1 disaster in January 1967. Yet even after alluding to political corruption in the Apollo program that led to this tragedy, Barbree never offers us further explanations or information. As I say, he provides as much depth as a 3 minute TV news report on the subject, which is perhaps all we can expect from a TV news reporter, but is certainly not what I want from a book. Not recommended.

This is an extremely disappointing book, that should have delivered so much more, especially from such a well-credentialled author. I have read practically every biography and book published on this period of the US space program, and I rate this book (very) near the bottom of this very long list.

You would expect the author to have offered a new slant on a (by now) very well reported space program. Not so; the book offers litle that is new and captivating. It was disappointing to see the book full of material that is better covered elsewhere; for instance, in-flight transcripts between the Mercury astronauts and Mission Control.

I was expected (not unreasonably) a behind-the-scenes account of the early days of the space program, the author's interaction with the astronauts, the friendships formed, the trials and tribulations of reporting in those "early days".

Yet it either doesn't cover threse topics (which creates doubt - possibly unfairly - as to how close the author actually was to the action and to the main players - despite claiming many as life long friends), or it rushes through them. For instance, the author's role in covering three moon landings is covered in 1 page!

The book ends up being a very hurried dash through the history of the space program, without enough reference to Barbree's role in it.

The book also has a number of unecessarily sycophantic references to other members of the NBC team of reporters, without giving any meaningful, or new, information about Barbree's role in covering any of these missions.

There are interesting parts of the book. It begins being captivating when Barbree discusses the abandoned Journalist-in-Space program in the mid-1980s, but that story soon drifts off course as well.

All up, a very, very disppointing book; one that is quite misleading given its title. I wish I had not wasted the money, or frankly, my time in reading something so underdone. You'd get more out of reading Collins' "Carrying the Fire" for a 20th time, or Mullane's "Riding Rockets" for a 5th time.

I am going to agree with those that scored this book three stars or under. If you have read any of those, mine will be similar in comment. I was expecting so much more indepth accounts than what was retold in this book. My expectations were much greater than the actual product. A wasted opportunity from the author.
I reccomend a "Don't Buy" but rather a loan from a library.

Barbree attempts to give a high-octane account of the space race. For those with no prior knowledge of the events it probably reads as a thrilling story. Unfortunately, there are a huge number of mistakes, most of which would have been easy to check. This results in a horribly misleading book, surprisingly so considering Barbree is supposed to have personal experience of these people and events.

A few small examples: Barbree makes much of his friendship with the original astronauts. But he misspells the full name of the first American in space. Many other astronaut names are misspelled, along with other space notables like von Braun. When describing John Glenn's flight, he makes much of the 'fireflies' that Glenn saw, saying Glenn 'realized they were frost.' Glenn, in his own biography, explains that he had no idea what the particles were, believed they were nothing to do with his spacecraft, and it was only later missions that worked it out.

Another famous space story is astronaut Scott Carpenter's call of "Godspeed, John Glenn" as Glenn launched into space. Rather than placing it correctly at the moment of liftoff, Barbree has it being said before the countdown - completely changing the meaning.

These are just small examples. Other factual details are much more important and less forgivable.

When covering Russian missions, the writing is even worse. He describes spacecraft doing orbits which are physically impossible. He says the Soviet's N1 rocket was over 200 feet taller than it was - a huge difference. He imagines having some magical access to Gagarin's thoughts and feelings during his spacecraft re-entry, and the resulting account is completely wrong. Instead of a smooth re-entry that had Gagarin smiling, the re-entry was dangerous and harrowing, as Gagarin's two modules did not separate as planned. Barbree seems to be going by the Soviet version of events released in 1961, rather than looking at any recent reliable source. By inventing insights into Gagarin's thoughts and character, he gives a misleading authority to a completely incorrect account.

Barbee recounts that Gagarin's spacecraft was called "Swallow." Gagarin's spacecraft was called, simply, "Vostok," which means "East." Swallow was a name given by some media in 1961 as Gagarin's callsign, not the spacecraft name. Except that information was also incorrect - Gagarin's callsign was "Cedar." So Barbree, here, has taken 46-year-old incorrect information that has long been superceded, and used it in a way that made it even more incorrect and confusing. It's moments like this (of which this is just one example - they are on almost every page) that the book is unforgivably sloppy.

When Barbree gets basic details wrong about very famous and well-known stories, I have little faith in his much-touted personal friendships and connections with the astronauts. It seems that he doesn't even know details that can be found in the astronauts' own books, never mind any insider stories. He gets so many things wrong - such as which astronauts were civilians, and which were military - you begin to wonder if he really ever met any of them. He describes one astronaut as "NASA's only civilian astronaut" at a time when ten had been selected to join the corps. He describes a highly-respected former test pilot instructor as a "former airline pilot," which is insulting to the person's skills. He repeatedly misquotes the most famous line from Apollo 13, "Houston, we've had a problem."

Barbree repeatedly uses the word "gravity" in a way that shows he does not understand its meaning. Geographical features on Earth are placed (literally) half a continent away from reality. The shuttle solid rockets are described as firing five seconds before liftoff, something that would rip the shuttle off the pad if attempted. He indicates the shuttle has the same amount of fuel in its fuel tanks before launch as when ten miles high, suggesting some magical fuel-less levitation process. He does not understand when and why the Skylab program was created, writing a completely inaccurate history. He gets the length of Skylab missions wrong by a factor of three. A spacecraft that was left in low earth orbit is instead described as flying through the solar system. Spacecraft 20-year-missions are described in the past tense when those spacecraft have not yet been in space for 20 years. Acronyms are given incorrectly, and people given incorrect job titles. He incorrectly describes who chose Christa McAuliffe as the first teacher in space. He confuses moviemaker Frank Capra with his son. The book has at least one photo printed the wrong way round (despite the spacecraft name being very visible), and an artist-created composite of an astronaut on the moon that is not a genuine photograph, but presented here as real. People are given the honor of being "firsts" who were not, and entire conversations given in quote marks as if they were recorded and accurate, when in fact they are Barbree's best guess at what was said in private meetings that were never recorded and Barbree was not invited to. He takes conversations that happened in briefing rooms and moves them to more dramatic places such as when someone is sliding into a spacecraft. He even takes a fictional line from the Apollo 13 movie, a line said in the movie by Jim Lovell's mother that Lovell has called "the creative imagination of the screenwriter," and pretends that it was a line said to Jim Lovell from mission control by another astronaut. It's an attempt to pump up the energy level, an attempt which largely succeeds, but at the expense of any attempt at accuracy or reliability.

I'm concerned that people might read this book, which on the surface is an enjoyable read and seems to have a lot of authority and insights, and believe this was the way it happened. This was not the way it was - it is horribly misleading in its invention of facts, events and conversations.

I was interviewed by Mr. Barbree in 1966 when I was a young engineer with McDonnell working on the Gemini project. McDonnell had sent me to the Cape to support the Gemini 9A ATDA target launch and I was working the night shift atop the Pad 14 gantry when Mr. Barbree appeared, began asking me questions and taking notes. I doubt that I was able to tell him anything worthwhile, as I was much too nervous about being interviewed by a national correspondent.

So it was with great expectation that I ordered his book. Alas, I was most disappointed when I finished it. Given his long career covering the space program, I expected there to be no (or very few) technical or factual errors, yet the book is full of them. There is interesting material included, but I began to become very distracted by the many inaccuracies. They definitely hampered my enjoyment.

People not familiar with the history of the space program will probably not notice most of them, but that is not the point; he should have done better.

This book certainly does its best to create an exciting and enjoyable romp through space history, but ends up being a wasted opportunity. Considering the title, there is surprisingly little personal insight in this book, and I found very little feel of what it was like to report first-hand on events, which is the way the book is being marketed.

Instead of the advertised personal insight into the space program from someone who was there, it read to me as a fast-paced but extremely generic skim over the highlights of space history. Most disappointingly, it is riddled with typos and factual errors. The errors include confusing fictional moments from space movies with real events, getting critical facts, names and dates wrong, and inventing transcripts of conversations that no-one ever recorded. Perhaps the mistakes were well-meaning attempts to boost the energy level of the book and try and make it a thrilling read: Barbree certainly could have made a great novel out of this material. But as a historical memoir, much of this book is only an approximation of what truthfully happened in the space program.

I did enjoy the non-space parts of the book. Barbree writes very well about his work on the Carter campaign, his coverage of civil rights, and the heart attack that nearly ended his life. This interesting writing shows that he can be a great writer when he nails his subject matter. But these are only small parts of a book which mostly concentrates on the space program, and covers it surprisingly badly.

I was most particularly disappointed to see a faked moon photograph presented in the book as if it was real. Barbree used this photo in a prior book in a similar manner, resulting in some understandable debate and controversy, and I am saddened to see him use it here again. At a time when far too many people are asking if we ever truly went to the moon, deceptively presenting an artist-created composite image as a real photo is risky and adds fuel to the fire.

Towards the end of the book, Barbree explains that when telling space history to his grandchildren, they jokingly accuse him of making it up, and that "telling whoppers, I suppose, is fuel for writers." Having read this book, I couldn't help but read that line with a deep sense of irony. Intentionally or unintentionally, there are a good many "whoppers" in this book.

If you are looking for a book which gives an insider's view of the space program, this is not it. It's neither a particularly personal reflection, nor is it accurate. It is, in fact, a rather sad ending to what must have been a fascinating space reporting career.

Engagingly written - like a good novel - but sadly full of basic errors. The author's vivid imagination overwhelms and bypasses known facts. Avoid it if you wish to know what really happened in those thrilling years.