Customer Reviews

Too Far From Home: A Story of Life and Death in Space

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am typically not a non-fiction reader. I bought the book for my husband and decided to read it first. I found myself quickly fascinated. The author takes some time to build a background of the astronauts that is essential to the story. In many instances the book reads like a novel, keeping me interested and focused. Pieces of history of the space program for the US and Russia are interspersed throughout, seamlessly blending with the story. The writing is beautiful. The author is able to spotlight the emotions of not only the astronauts who were "too far from home" but that of their wives as well. I highly recommended the book to anyone who loves stories about space and anyone else who just loves a good "story"!

Only someone in total denial would be able to believe that space travel isn't risky or potentially dangerous..and, of course, there's been plenty of deaths among astronauts - before takeoff, while in the air, etc. Books have been written about those events. So what makes this one a standout?
Somehow, almost seamlessly, this particular author (Chris Jones) manages to create a book that breaks the mold and writes a gripping account of three astronauts who were left stranded in space when the unexpected happened and the Columbia exploded, leaving them literally "lost in space.", with no obvious ride home.
This book combines so many genres and melds them into one compelling read. It is part memoir/biography (with the lives of the astronauts and their background revealed), part gripping tale of what went wrong and also a revealing look at life in space, with the kind of details that people may not have known before. It all seems so IMMEDIATE, so real, so "you were there" in writing style. I could not put it down and I am not normally a fan of books about space or space travel.
So if you're looking for something different from what you usually read, pick this up - and then share it with a friend. It is truly an excellent and engrossing book, although at times I did have to put it down because it was so intense. But I couldn't put it down for long!

Felt like there was a little too much effort put into making this into a Manly Tale. Everything seems a little too exagerrated- the spicy language, the icy fear, the burning decisions. Maybe this style would have held up without question in a magazine, but at the novel's length, I kept wondering- "How do you know?" The little details started to feel like some of them were imagined or embellished; the writing was popping me out of being lost in the scene.
The endless background stories didn't seem like necessary set-ups to the main story, they seemed like padding. All the tales of the cowboy days of space travel made the main story a little beige.
This criticism doesn't have anything to do with the actual story subjects. I was very glad to learn what had happened to the crew (I had forgotten about them during that time just like everybody else). I would have probably enjoyed actual interviews and quotes from them more than this second or third-hand tale.

As much as I try not to generalize from limited data, I must make the following observation: sportswriters should stick to writing books about things they know, i.e., sports. Sportswriters should NOT try to write about technical subjects like spaceflight. The prime example of a book that should never have been written is "For All Mankind," by sportswriter Harry Hurt--the hands-down, all-time, worst-written, least accurate, most-full-of-breathtaking-technical errors spaceflight book ever. "Too Far From Home," by Chris Jones (also a sportswriter), is not nearly as bad, but it is still clear that the author doesn't understand some of the things he wrote about.

By the time I was 50 pages into "Too Far From Home," I was reeling from Mr. Jones' jarring, bizarre and oversimplified descriptions of spaceflight technology. Here are a few examples. He portrays NASA's early spacecraft as "corrugated-tin capsules held together by hardware-store screws." What an injustice to the nationwide team of dedicated engineers and technicians who built what were, at the time, state-of-the-art vehicles. How about this one: during the final few seconds before a shuttle launch, "the three main engines began gimbeling [sic], testing their directional thrust...throwing off a little push with each pull of the trigger..." Huh? What trigger? Who's pulling a trigger? It's a pre-programmed computer-controlled sequence. Here's another one. Just as the shuttle enters orbit: "...a loud clang signaled that the external fuel tank had been blown loose and begun to come apart..." Jones seems to think that the ET blows up as soon as it separates from the Orbiter. It doesn't--it stays intact until it re-enters atmosphere and burns up (mostly) half a world away from its release point.

Jones also apparently doesn't know much about airplanes. He describes air-to-air combat exercises in which missiles "punch holes through" the wings of drone aircraft, "maybe spilling a few gallons of hydraulic fluid." A hole in a wing is much more likely to release fuel, not hydraulic fluid, since that's where an airplane's fuel tanks usually are. Describing test pilot Ken Bowersox's "twin-engine beater" personal airplane, Jones says that the intrepid soon-to-be-astronaut "push[ed] his flying heap higher still, sometimes high enough to catch a glimpse of the curvature of the earth." There's no airplane except for the likes of the SR-71 that can fly high enough for its pilot to see the curvature of the earth. NO private plane can do so.

I was also taken aback by Jones' interminable use of off-the-wall similes to express concepts in ways that many readers might relate to, but that greatly sacrifice accuracy in the process. For example, I sincerely doubt that shuttle crewmembers seated in the mid-deck during launch think of themselves as "...hiding out like stowaways, like kids sneaking into a drive-in by getting locked in the trunk of a car." Locker-room and sports metaphors abound, which I found tiresome after a while, as I did his insistence on assigning motivations that he could not possibly know to virtually every person he writes about.

There is, of course, more to "Too Far From Home" than spaceflight hardware, and some readers will probably enjoy the human-interest stories. But in a field such as spaceflight, in which technology reigns supreme, an author should at least get the technology right. Jones often does not. I have to wonder why, and for whom, he wrote it. Space geeks will find it maddeningly simplified and sorely lacking in technical understanding, and need not bother reading it. I had to force myself to finish it. Casual readers may like its fast-paced, easygoing style, and may gain a little understanding of some aspects of spaceflight--but that understanding will likely echo the author's flawed knowledge. My recommendation to all readers is to give "Too Far From Home" a pass. There are many far superior spaceflight books available. I give it two stars just because it IS marginally better than "For All Mankind," which I rated with one star only because Amazon doesn't allow zero-star ratings.

It is somewhat hard to believe that in about a year, the first modules of the ISS will have spent 10 years in orbit. It is also a somewhat forgotten footnote that people have been living on the ISS for about 8 years as most of the world's population seems to be too caught up in things going on closer to home then to be concerned about the activities of a few individuals hurling around the Earth every 90 minutes. Chris Jones' book "Too Far From Home" has painted a most fascinating portrait of life aboard the ISS at a time of crisis for NASA, following the breakup of Columbia nearly 5 years ago.

Today we have some great autobiographical (and biographical) books being written about the shuttle program with Mike Mullane's "Riding Rockets" and "Sky Walking" written by Tom Jones. But "Too Far from Home" is the first I've read that covers life onboard the ISS itself as opposed to a shuttle mission to the ISS (such as the final mission that Tom Jones flew on when the Destiny Laboratory was delivered, chronicled in "Sky Walking"). Indeed as the station keeps growing in orbit, the experiences of future astronauts on that station will be similar, but in some ways probably uniquely different as the ISS adds new capabilities and needs. So this book makes a nice snapshot of life when the station was kept in something of a slightly mothballed state with supplies rationed to maintain the crew on smaller Russian Progress supply flights.

This book more then anything though is about three men, all with very different backgrounds. First up is Ken Bowersox, a military man, veteran of 5 shuttle flights as a pilot astronaut and later commander. As such it seems a bit odd why this astronaut who had "been there, done that" would opt for a sideways transfer to the long term space station occupation program given its shakey political life in Congress at the time. But reading the book, you do get a sense as to why he wanted to go there (probably so he could say "been there, done that, got the T-shirt"). The second crewmember is the more enigmatic Nikolai Budarin, another military and space vet with similar experience in the Soviet and then Russian space programs, but his background comes from an agency that had done long duration space flights already and did them in ways very different from what we in the West have experienced. Then finally there is the egghead, one Doctor Dan Petit. He is the kind of guy whom I imagine would probably be trying to find a way to get himself into space via some contraption in the Garage if he didn't get there on his own. In a sense this book revolves around him. Reason being is he was only an astronaut for about five years before he got bumped from Expedition 6 backup crew to prime crew for this mission. Given that the average astronaut selected in the mid to late 1990s (as part of George Abbey's plan to come up with less expensive engineering staff support as opposed to bringing on more contractor engineers) spends about 8 to 10 years in support and training capacities before their first flights, Don got quite a gift. As a result, I got the feeling that he kept some of that wide eyed kid appeal compared to perhaps another astronaut who might have spent more time in the support role and had seen the space program from A LOT of sides in the various support offices before getting that first ride.

With help from these three astronauts themselves, along with interviews from people who worked at NASA at the time, but who have since retired (including then NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe), Chris has come up with a great book that is hard to put down. The beginning may seem a bit awkward until the main thrust of the story picks up speed, but it does have a point to make. Launch scrubs and previous isolation experiences of other astronauts may not seem to have much bearing on this, but they do as they do help provide an education as to the emotion and stress roller coasters that astronauts and their families go through. And yes, it has been written before in other books (such as Riding Rockets and Sky Walking), but the author has to make the assumption that some of his readers haven't read that book before. So having it written here is perfectly acceptable.

As for technical flubs, I read them and I consider myself a self proclaimed "space geek" with more knowledge about some of this stuff then the average joe. To my eyes, they are minor, and anyone who gets hung up on them misses the point about this book, as it is not intended to be a technical journal. The author has to make some attempt to try and explain some very technical functions with more of an everyman speak for readers that haven't encountered this stuff before. In my opinion, he seemed to do that just fine. I seem to recall there was only one time where I muttered a "cough, cough B... cough ....t" under my breath, although I can't specifically recall what it was in regards to (it might have been related to what happens to a human body exposed to a vacuum).

About the only thing I wish this book could have dealved into more was some of the water sphere science that Don Petit did in orbit. I had the chance to attend a talk given by Don last year where he showed some of the videos he shot in orbit. He didn't just show guys floating weightless and eating Bananas either, but rather he showed these water science experiments. I will say that the audience was totally captivated by it! It was like watching an episode of Mr. Wizard's World on cable. He would ask us to hypothesize what we thought might happen when say an Alka-Seltzer tablet got dropped into a ball of water in zero Gee, then he would show us the results. It is possible for an author to convey that, although admittedly difficult. I believe Chris could have devoted a chapter to that stuff potentially as to me it showcased just the kind of man Don Petit was and the "on the fly" science that only men can do in space compared to unmanned missions. Dr Petit also showed the gyro stabilized flashlight holder made from 3 CD players and a slide show of the pictures he shot of cities at night with his improvised camera tracking system made with the unused IMAX camera mount (both are also mentioned in the book).

As such, I would recommend this book to people looking to learn more about what it means to be an astronaut today. I am only giving it four stars though. The reason is not for the potential of a chapter written on water science. I can only review what I have read and not what could have been read. Rather, I am not giving it five stars because of the summary written on the dust jacket (which also appears in the Amazon summary). Reason being is to me it seemed a bit too much "doom and gloom" and sensationalist for my taste. Okay, granted there is indeed a bit of that in the story itself, considering the circumstances that the space program found itself in after Columbia burned up. But it got taken a bit far. For one example IMHO, there was NO NEED to put that mention of the Soyuz 11/Salyut 1 accident from 1971 in the dust jacket summary, given that ALL Soyuz crews since that mission have worn full pressure suits during launch and entry as a safeguard against that failure happening again. To me it stunk of a tabloid headline hook and seemed just as lame (and slanted). Some people go for that, I do not.

Yes, mention could have been made of the seemingly quirky nature of the Soyuz capsule. But if it had been written up as more of an unknown factor that could come back to bite them later (as the TMA Soyuz capsule design hadn't been flight tested before operational use) rather then a spacecraft with a "outdated technology" (technically the shuttle uses "outdated technology,")and a "questionable safety record," it would have gotten me to read the book sooner then later. As such, it took me 3 months before I worked up the courage to buy this book as I really didn't feel like buying a book that seemed to have some bias against the space program before I got to the first page.

Trust me, what is written in the pages is NOT quite like what the summary says. If you get past that, then the book is MUCH better then what is portrayed presumeably by some publicist rather then the author himself. Chris, if you read this, I think your publicist (or whomever wrote that summary) owes you for that, just as much as you think Bryan Burroughs does for his book "Dragonfly" (as mentioned in the "Acknowledgements" section).

The book is an interesting read, but, to me, the title seems misleading. The Expedition Six astronauts aboard the ISS had a Soyuz capsule (for emergency escape) ready to go the entire time they were "stranded", after the Columbia tragedy grounded the shuttle fleet. Yes, their mission was extended while a plan to supply and man the station was formulated, but they were in no increased danger at all, and in fact, they had such an enjoyable time none of the three wanted to depart for home when they were relieved. They had, to a degree, "gone native" in their own little world. Enjoy the story and detail of living in space, but don't wait for them to be trapped there. Especially interesting in this book are details of the Soviet space program, heretofore difficult to come by.

Jones is a very compelling writer; however, in his attempt to novelize his non-fiction account, he strays way too far from the central story so many times that after 100 pages the reader is quite annoyed. Yes, we get it that he can write and construct witty allegories, but this book is a good 100 pages too long and far too overwritten.

I'm not a space junkie in any respects. This was actually my first space book. I don't even like sci-fi novels. I mainly read non-fiction books of all themes (except space). I happened upon this book while at the library when I glimpsed its cover and thought I'd give it a read. However, twenty-five pages or so into my journey I began to feel the collective cogs of my rocket ship begin to gum up with too much descriptive sludge.

Here's the deal... descriptions are necessary, especially for things such as space travel where so few of us lack the actual experience. However, I felt the authors' intrusive descriptive hand kept distracting me from an otherwise great story. "Like a magician training an apprentice, he taught Pettit tricks. He stretched him, too, and groomed him for big dreaming - engineers had picked up from God building the world." Hu? (pg 73) It's also very obvious the author is a sports writer, a fact I hadn't actually realized until much later when I read his bio. Examples: " ...trying to pick out planets that looked more like fuzzy footballs" and "A throw-in with his sneakers made him want desperately to look over Glenn's shoulder and enjoy the same view" (pg 73). I don't know, do you throw-in your sneakers to look over someone's shoulders?

I do realize some people do and will enjoy this author's writing style, unfortunately I did not, which is why I rate it so low. To give the author some credit, it does sound like he did a lot of research (though apparently not all together accurate according to more knowledgeable reviewers), and beneath his bravado he does recount an interesting story about space travel over the years, and about the plight of the three astronauts (of which this story is about) stuck in space. As noted by another previous reviewer the book does pick up speed toward the end (last fifty pages or so) when less descriptive narrative is needed to land this thing.

I have never really gotten involved in the typical space/astronaut/nasa books before. This is really written by someone who truly understands the human phenomenon. I couldn't put the book down, and was sad when it was over. How many non fiction books can you say that about? I learned so much about the space program, and came to love the real folks who serve it. I was able to identify with the wives, and with the feelings of isolation and disconnect that the astronauts experienced as well.

Ordinarily I wouldn't read a book on space travel because it's not something I've ever had an interest in. I picked the book up for my husband. I'm certainly glad I opened it myself. I read one of the comments where the person thought that Chris Jones should stick to what he knows, sports. I think it's obvious that Chris IS sticking to what he knows, the heart and soul that fills a person up and pushes them to go for the impossible. He understands the human spirit and writes about it beautifully. Space travel is a huge, poetic, heroic, incredible achievement that somehow I viewed with a blase' attitude -- Ho-hum, man in space.... What was I thinking! Thanks to Chris I will now always view it with a lump in my throat and gratitude to the remarkable men and women who make it happen.