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Mission: An American Congressman's Voyage to Space

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I've read a lot of books about the space programs of the world and I figured that this book would be just another average book about the space program, especially when one considers that the author is a United States Congressman, but I was pleasantly mistaken. I was expecting something more like John Glenn's autobiography, but it takes a lot just to figure out what party he belongs to.

Unlike a lot of other astronaut biographies which present a lot of information about pre and post flight life, Bill Nelson spends very little time writing about his past and only a brief section about growing up in the area and that his descendents owned the area around the Kennedy Space Center. He devotes a substantial number of pages to, his selection and training, the Challenger accident and about his hopes and dreams for the future of NASA and international cooperation.

Bill Nelson's flight was the last space shuttle flight before the Challenger accident. Even though he was only a payload specialist, basically a passenger assigned to run a few experiments, he describes the incredible amount of work that he went through just to prepare for his flight. He describes crew training, physicals, flying in the KC135, which is able to provide about a minute of zero-gravity free fall, simulations and numerous launch scrubs (more than any other shuttle mission to date). He also presents a lot of information about the Challenger crew, one he was almost part of, but due to internal NASA problems he was reassigned to an earlier flight. The book also covers a lot of the behind the scenes actions at the Johnson Space Center and the Kennedy Space Center and he praises many of the unknowns that make the space program works. For example, Jay Greene, Doug Ward, Carolyn Huntoon and George Abbey

Since he was originally schedule to flight on the Challenger mission, I found his view on the accident extremely interesting and one, which I have never heard before, and one, which doesn't get much press. While he does attribute the Challenger explosion to the failed Solid Rocket Motor joints, he believes that political problems with the NASA administrator were one of the main causes for the Challenger accident. Specifically, James Beggs, the NASA Administrator was under investigation for over charging the government when he was at General Dynamics (he was later cleared) and he had to take a leave of absence. The Deputy Administrator, a non-aerospace engineer, took over and the author feels that his lack of experience, such as not even attending the liftoff, had a major contribution to the explosion such as not canceling the launch. He believes that James Beggs would not have allowed the launch to occur.

This book may not be for everyone, but I think a lot of people will find this book interesting, especially for the behinds the scene descriptions of the space program and the lack of political rhetoric.

All proceeds from the book go to charity.

This book is a personal account of Florida Representative Bill Nelson's flight on the Shuttle Columbia made only 16 days before the January 28, 1986, loss of Challenger. Nelson, then the chair of the House Space Science and Applications Subcommittee, was a payload specialist on mission STS-61C. This book relates his training regimen and preparation for the flight as well as the first-person account of the mission. At every level, "Mission" has an "I was there" quality about it, and is entertaining and insightful in that capacity. Most interesting, the last part of the book analyzes the "Challenger" accident and examines U.S. space policy. While costly, Nelson concludes, the risks are worth what will come out of the endeavor. He concludes his final chapter with these comments: "If America ever abandoned her space ventures, then we would die as a nation, becoming second-rate in our own eyes, as well as in the eyes of the world....Our prime reason for commitment can be summed up...space is our next frontier" (p. 296). Well...perhaps, but I'm no so sure.