We Have Capture: Tom Stafford and the Space Race (Paperback)

by Stafford T (Author), Tom Stafford (Author), Thomas P. Stafford (Author), Michael Cassutt (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
A great talent, a great career-and still involved! -- Senator John Glenn

An intimate portrayal of space policy, especially its sometimes cantankerous, sometimes tranquil, but always interesting interactions between USA and USSR. -- Roger D. Launius, NASA Chief Historian

Stafford was truly one of those few who stood on the shoulders of giants and made history. -- Tom Hanks

Product Description
How Apollo commander Stafford defused the Cold War in space by leading the way to Soviet/US cooperation.

What an amazing career—Tom Stafford attained the highest speed ever reached by a test pilot (28,547 mph), carried a cosmonaut's coffin with Soviet Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, led the team that designed the sequence of missions leading to the original lunar landing, and drafted the original specifications for the B-2 stealth bomber on a piece of hotel stationery. But his crowning achievement was surely his role as America's unofficial space ambassador to the Soviet Union during the darkest days of the Cold War.

In this lively memoir written with Michael Cassutt, Stafford begins by recounting his early successes as a test pilot, Gemini and Apollo astronaut, and USAF general. As President Nixon's stand-in at the 1971 Soviet funeral for three cosmonauts, he opened the door to the possibility of cooperation in space between Russians and Americans. Stafford's Apollo-Soyuz team was the first group of Americans to work at the cosmonaut training center, and also the first to visit Baikonur, the top-secret Soviet launch center, in 1974. His 17 July 1975 "handshake in space" with Soviet commander Alexei Leonov (who became a lifelong friend) proved to the world that the two opposing countries could indeed work successfully together.

Stafford has continued in this leadership role right up to the present, participating in designing and evaluating the Space Shuttle, Mir, and the International Space Station. He is truly an American hero who personifies the broadest spirit of exploration and cooperation. 30 b/w photographs.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 302 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian; illustrated edition edition (January 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588341011
• ISBN-13: 978-1588341013
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #930,034 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside Look at the Life of an American Hero, October 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: We Have Capture (Hardcover)

Many books have been written about the glory days of NASA. Now we have the chance to learn about the life of one of the early pioneers of space exploration. Tom Stafford takes the reader on a journey of his amazing life from small town Oklahoma to 50,000 feet above the moon and shaking hands with Russian Cosmonauts in space. Anybody interested in Stafford's giant role in the glory years of Gemini and Apollo will love this book. Stafford vividly recalls both the joys of test pilot and astronaut life as well as the tragedies such as the T-38 flight into St. Louis where astronauts See and Bassett lost their lives. Stafford explains how profound the Apollo-Soyuz project was in his life. He began his military and astronaut career as an avowed enemy of the Soviet Union and eventually became the commander of the flight that initiated American and Russian cooperation in space. This book is a real winner and will delight those with a basic or advanced interest in the orgins of manned space exploration. The only drawback of the book is that one realizes that the NASA of 2002 is only a shell of what it was in the sixties and early seventies. Well done on a great book that adds immensely to the literature of manned space flight.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good, February 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: We Have Capture (Hardcover)

Where this book provides more info from others of its ilk:

- some decent "beginning" tales. I was hopeful that this would continue in such detail to give a full picture of the man. More on this later.
- Some excellent Gemini tales, particularly about himself, Grissom, and Schirra.
- Lots of post Apollo stuff, and interesting ASTP, ISS, and shuttle info. I personally was unaware of stafford's importance in the 90s in organizing various committeees to discuss NASA futures, and ISS, and think it's a shame that he declined the oppportunity to become NASA Admin.
- some more detail about alexei leonov, the great russian cosmonaut (and soviet space program in general) is sprinkled throughout the book, as he and Tom are very good buddies. There's an attempt to present their careers in parallel perspective - sometimes successfully, sometimes not. One nice piece is the Bondarenko bit - this has been reported by Oberg and others, but placed neatly in context here. Nice.

Where this book is no better

- most of the apollo era. Not much new here, little new insight.

Where this book fails to fully satisfy

- No deep insights or understandings or Mr Stafford himself. I'd wager he's a friendly-on-the-surface (certainly seems to get along with almost everyone) but hard-to-get-to-know-beyond type of fellow. Which is fine is all you want is space wonk stuff and policy info, which this book genrally delivers - but frustrating if you really want to understand the man, his families, and his friends. The bits about Faye and the astronaut wives felt tacked on - as if the authors had read Gene Cernan's book and decided "well we gotta follow suit here"...but did so half-heartedly.
- you have to put up with the usual par-for-the-course slightly egotistical way of looking at things. This is by no minds Mr Stafford's sole demesne - all the astronaut's possess this, perhaps rightfully so. I guess that only strongwilled strongego fellers could prosper in the space program. Esp. if they became 3 star generals later. But it does sometimes get to one while reading along (eg when he makes the offhand remark about how NASA folks were impressed by how long his client list was)
- a little too unwilling to pass judgement (and hence even hint at his feelings) on fellow astronauts. An example is where he recounts the issues with Apollo 7 crew and OTHER people's opinions without really expressing his own. Oddly, the major exception is Gus Grissom, whom Tom seems to like but also points out a few misjudgements on his part.
- a little too stiff in general. Even if he didn't tell us, I could tell he was "general-speaking". More and more I wish Pete Conrad had lived to write his memoirs. Those would have been foul-mouthed and crazy. Ah well.

In short I think it needed say 75 more pages sprinkled all about that delved more deeply into the man. Whether this is the fault of Mike Cassutt (who also co-wrote Deke!, which I thought went a bit deeper but also descended even more evilly into "list making"), or Tom's own reticence, or my own critical eye. I dunno.

Still a decent book. I'd probably place it towards the top-middle of the pack. I found Slayon, Cernan, Kranz or Kraft (you really only need one), more informative.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Astronaut Apart, December 20, 2003

By	Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: We Have Capture (Hardcover)

This is a very fine book that is sure to benefit all readers interested in America's adventure in space. Tom Stafford is one of America's most significant astronauts, although he is less well known than some of the others. While Stafford's four spaceflights--Gemini VI, Gemini IX, Apollo 10, and Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP)--made critical contributions to the development of American space capability in the pioneering era of the 1960s and 1970s, his efforts since the 1970s as the unofficial ambassador to the Soviet Union for space and his key roles in defining space policy in the United States have been even more critical to the evolution of human space flight. One senior NASA official has said, and I agree with the assessment, that Stafford's efforts have shaped every important policy issue affecting human spaceflight for the last quarter century. In these arenas of Stafford's career this book makes important contributions to understanding. Stafford, furthermore, has a credible and exceptionally capable space writer to assist him in putting this book together. Michael Cassutt is the author of many other books, including one with Deke Slayton. Both Stafford and Cassutt deserve credit for presenting a complex person and complex era clearly and concisely.

This book may also become a benchmark in the historiography of human spaceflight because of its insights into the American/Soviet relationship in space. There have been since the 1950s no two spaceflight programs that have been more closely tied than those of the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia, sometimes as rivals and at other instances as cooperative efforts. Stafford has played a key role in both the rivalry and the cooperation. This autobiography discusses the push and pull of these two programs and demonstrates that even as competition reigned in the 1970s a thawing was taking place that led eventually to the cooperative construction of the International Space Station (ISS) at the end of the twentieth century. Because of Stafford's close association with Soviet leaders and cosmonauts beginning in 1971, as well as during the ASTP program, in the early 1990s he was privy to many of the negotiations and served as a means of back channel communication between Russian and U.S. leaders that led to bringing Russia into the ISS program. That story cannot be adequately told without Stafford's account of what took place in the negotiations.

This book provides a valuable first-person account of significant aspects of human spaceflight since the 1970s. It has appeal not only to specialists as a record of a principal actor in the arena, but also to spaceflight enthusiasts who want intimate accounts by astronauts.