Sigma 7: The NASA Mission Reports: Apogee Books Space Series 37 [Paperback]

Robert Godwin (Editor), Steve Whitfield (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003 | Series: Apogee Books Space Series

The details of America's first long duration space voyage are available for the first time in this text, as is an exclusive interview with the pilot, Wally Schirra.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Another production of the highly popular series of reproduced NASA Mission Reports..." -- Spaceflight, March 2004.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Collector's Guide Publishing, Inc. (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1894959019
• ISBN-13: 978-1894959018
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,288,926 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Great NASA Publications At Your Fingertips, November 8, 2003

By 

John R. Keller (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sigma 7: The NASA Mission Reports: Apogee Books Space Series 37 (Paperback)

Captain Wally Schirra was one of the seven Mercury Astronauts named by NASA in April 1959. On October 3, 1962; he piloted the six orbit Sigma 7 Mercury flight; a flight which lasted 9 hours, 15 minutes. The spacecraft attained a velocity of 17,557 miles per hour at an altitude of 175 statue miles and traveled almost 144,000 statute miles before re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. Recovery of the Sigma 7 spacecraft occurred in the Pacific Ocean about 275 miles northeast of Midway Island. His flight was considered a critical flight in the manned space flight program, since the previous two Mercury flights experienced major malfunctions (Scott Carpenter's overshot of the landing site and John Glenn's reentry shield problem).

The book opens with the usual NASA press kit, which covers the basics of the mission, the major hardware components of the Mercury capsule, mission objectives and a biography of the astronaut. The next section of the book contains numerous one and two pages News Releases that cover specific topics of the mission. The next section contains a very interesting scanned in pamphlet called "The Six Orbits of Sigma 7" which as the title indicates provides an overview of his mission. This NASA produced promotional brochure contains many highlights of the mission, from the training exercises, the flight to the splashdown and post-flight celebration tour. It is loaded with numerous black and white photographs, many of which showcase Wally Schirra's personal life.

The next section contains the Flight Operations Debriefing of the mission. The portion of the book is a question and answer section between Wally Schirra and members of the Flight Operations Directorate and was conducted immediately after splashdown. This debriefing contains the astronaut's opinion on the functioning of the capsule. From the answers given in this section, it is clear why Wally Schirra was chosen as an astronaut. His answers are highly technical and give the spacecraft designers an excellent insight to the operation of the Mercury capsule This section maybe difficult for some to follow, since there are numerous undefined NASA acronyms and references to specific pieces of equipment (individual switches), which are probably known only to the astronauts and the designers of the capsule.

The section of the book contains the NASA Special Publication, "Results of the Third United States Manned Orbital Flight, October 3, 1962." This piece discusses the performance of the spacecraft and the launch vehicle, the flight controllers, and the astronaut together with a detailed analysis of the medical aspects of the flight.

As is typical for all the books in the Mission Reports series, this book contains a CD that includes additional material. The CD contains a NASA produced film titled, "The Flight of Sigma 7." The CD also contains a pdf of the hard-to-find NASA Special Publication, Space Medicine In Project Mercury (SP-4003). Finally, the CD has a short interview with Wally Schirra.

Some general information that might be useful.

1) These reports are just scanned-in documents from previously released NASA press kits, etc., In order to preserve the spirit of the original reports, all typographical and grammatical errors have NOT been fixed.

2) Proceeds from the book goes to "The Watch" an asteroid impact research project of the Space Frontier Foundation. In other words, Apogee Books is making very little off the sale of US government produced books and documents.