Customer Reviews

The Real Space Cowboys, with Bonus DVD Video Disc

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

 

 

It's a great pity that Al Shepard never wrote a decent autobiography (the hack-written, ghosted "Moon Shot" isn't even worth mentioning), and the one adult-reader biography about him, written long after his death, suffers from some pretty elementary factual errors and a lack of knowing the subject first hand.

With this book, we finally get to know the guy. Plus the long-dead Deke Slayton, Wernher von Braun, and others who never told their story off-the-cuff in this way.

Buckbee was there, and saw it all. More importantly, he taped it, and wrote it down, and the guys all trusted him implicitly. So reading this book is like having long-lost relatives come to life and tell you their most personal stories. This book tells you what it was REALLY like to be one of the original astronauts - and it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.

In a tribute to colleague Gordon Cooper in October 2004, Scott Carpenter said, "Nearly 50 years ago, a small group of American men were given a special charge by this nation to ensure pre-eminence in space ... We were welded into a fraternity that had no equal at the time."
[...] They were the men who flew on our black-and-white TV sets in our homes and schools, majestic heroes exploring the last frontier. We knew them then from media reports, later from books like "The Right Stuff." (By the way, to a man, the Mercury 7 were irritated by the Hollywood-ization done to the movie version of the book.)
"The Real Space Cowboys" picks up where "The Right Stuff" left off. It's contemplative and insightful, as if only years later did these men appreciate the enormity of their accomplishments. It's a "Greatest Generation" sort of reflection on their part, through interviews, anecdotes and first-person accounts.
Along with the Mercury 7, there is another central character in the book, Dr. Wernher von Braun, the German rocket scientist whose skills in persuasion to get the space program launched and to motivate his teams of engineers and worker was matched only by his scientific genius.
"I liked that the book brought von Braun to the surface," Schirra said in an interview. "People didn't know much about him. He was a very gracious man who did some amazing things."
This is the ultimate insider book. Ed Buckbee, the author, worked with von Braun at Marshall Space Flight Center and as a NASA public affairs officer worked with all the astronauts who flew the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.
He was selected by von Braun to create and manage the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., and was founder of the U.S. Space Camp and, along with the Mercury 7, the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame near Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Schirra shrugged off his role here as "editing and verifying a lot of things." If that's not just mere modesty, he has to be the most accomplished fact-checker in publishing history, the only man to travel in Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights.
Along with a gallery of photos displayed throughout, the book comes with a DVD that has save-for-your-grandchildren moments, like a mini-documentary on Shepard's first flight, as well as some whimsical moments with elaborate practical jokes. "Levity is lubricant of crises," Schirra said, explaining the astronauts' love of a good "gotcha."
The fun-loving side -- Shepard once borrowed an Indy 500 race car and drove it onto Johnson Space Center, just to trump Schirra's pride in a new Ferrari -- mixes wonderfully and entertainingly with the contemplative side in this book.
What Buckbee and Schirra proved conclusively in "The Real Space Cowboys" is there was plenty of fascinating stuff to write, years after "The Right Stuff."

-- Mark McCarter, columnist, The Huntsville (Ala.) Times

This book is a valuable and interesting contribution to the early history of the United States space program. Probably due to the close involvement of the primary author with Wernher von Braun, there is an unexpectedly high proportion of the book devoted to those aspects of the space program related to Huntsville and the von Braun team's efforts there. This is not at all apparent from publicity releases about the book, or even from the cover of the book itself. While there is significant information contained in the book about the Mercury astronauts, its greater contribution is in its Huntsville-related content, which has not received such a degree of attention in most similar publications. Those who were involved in the program at Huntsville in those early days will find the book especially appealing.

Both Buckbee and Schirra do an equitable job of describing the details inside the race to the moon. The Apogee publication, however, suffers from poor editing and numerous errors. All in all, a creditable job by the authors, and an accurate insight into the American race for space, particularly the characterizations of von Braun and the M7.

I was lucky enough to hear Ed speak while I was attending Teacher Space Camp and was totally sucked in by his incredible backstories of the original astronauts and the "US Space Race". If you have any interest in the space program, this is a must read. Ed and Wally do a great job in letting you know the men behind the legends and just how much fun they really are (were).

regarding the M7. Too short in many ways. Buckbee reports on the 7 through interviews and personal stories. Von Braun is also covered rather extensively.
This is a timely book as you realize that only 3 of the 7 remain alive and they're not getting any younger.
Defintily worth reading and owning.
The attached disc is also good.

This book is a real tribute to the Mercury 7, as well as the millions of men and women who took the United States up into space. It traces the various steps of the astronauts from their fighter pilot days, until the days they flew the rocket ships into orbit and beyond. The book also contains numerous and interesting photos from that early era of manned space flight.

Because of a personal and a friendship with someone who knew most of the guys, I can honestly say Buckbee was/is right on..I've read most of the books out on the guys, and this one shows a different side of them, dedicated and close nit...Something rarely found in a group this size...
A darn good comfortable read, worth your time...

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I checked this book out from the local public library and decided it was good enough (3.5 stars) to want to own a copy for myself. The book is an interesting read if you are really big-time into the early U.S. space program. The videos on the DVD are very dated, but considering the topic is the early days of space flight, what would you expect? The "Gotcha!" videos were probably hilarious to NASA employees in the early 60s, but fall short now.

I saved by buying "used - like new" from an Amazon Marketplace seller. I trust Amazon (and the Amazon Marketplace) for nearly ALL my book and video purchases.

WARNING: The DVD that I received with the "used" book was a single-sided DVD-R (recordable) rather than a commercially-produced double-sided DVD-ROM (like the book from the library contained). The content was the same (with a slightly different menu, of course), but by fitting it on a single-sided disc it probably suffered a little file compression (reduction in quality). Considering the age of the videos, this is probably not really an issue.

A BIGGER concern, however, is that some DVD players, particularly older ones, have trouble with DVD-R discs, and DVD-R discs are more easily damaged and have a shorter life-expectancy than standard commercially-produced DVD-ROM discs.

I don't know if all the Amazon Marketplace sellers' copies of this book have DVD-R discs or just the one I chose, or if the publisher has switched to DVD-R in later printings of the book, or whatever, but keep this in mind if you have compatibility issues with DVD-R discs. It was not really an issue for me, but it might be for you...

The book is still an interesting read. The videos are really just a nice plus. Enjoy! Keep the dream alive!