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Pat Duggins

Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program Hardcover – October 21, 2007

by Pat Duggins (Author)

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The Space Shuttle was once the cornerstone of the U.S. space program. However, each new flight brings us one step closer to the retirement of the shuttle in 2010. Final Countdown is the riveting history of NASA's Space Shuttle program, its missions, and its impending demise. It also examines the plans and early development of the space agency’s next major effort: the Orion Crew Exploration Capsule.

Journalist Pat Duggins, National Public Radio's resident "space expert," chronicles the planning stages of the shuttle program in the early 1970s, the thrills of the first flight in 1981, construction of the International Space Station in the 1990s, and the decision in the early 2000s to shut it down.

As a rookie reporter visiting the Kennedy Space Center hangar to view the Challenger wreckage, Duggins was in a unique position to offer a poignant eyewitness account of NASA's first shuttle disaster. In Final Countdown, he recounts the agency's struggle to rebound after the Challenger and Columbia tragedies, and explores how politics, scientific entrepreneurship, and the human drive for exploration have impacted the program in sometimes unexpected ways.

Duggins has covered eighty-six shuttle missions, and his twenty-year working relationship with NASA has given him unprecedented access to personnel. Many spoke openly and frankly with him, including veteran astronaut John Young, who discusses the travails to get the shuttle program off the ground. Young's crewmate, astronaut Bob Crippen, reveals the frustration and loss he felt when his first opportunity to go into space on the first planned space station was taken away.

As the shuttle program winds down, more astronauts may face similar disappointments. Final Countdown is a story of lost dreams, new hopes, and the ongoing conquest of space.

Print length

264 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University Press of Florida
Publication date

October 21, 2007
Dimensions

6.25 x 1 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

081303146X
ISBN-13

978-0813031460
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Many Americans' only memories of their country's excursions into space are of the space shuttle program, inaugurated with the launch of Columbia in 1981. Twenty-two years later, Columbia's disintegration over the Southwest played a major role in the decision to end the program. NPR journalist Duggins reviews the 25-year saga of the shuttle missions, some of which have been shrouded in mystery, as astronauts took secret military payloads into space; others received worldwide attention and acclaim, as when the Hubble Space Telescope was restored to 20–20 vision. The author repeats the oft-made charge that the shuttle is a space vehicle in search of a true mission. Too often shuttle administrators have settled for running a billion-dollar short-distance trucking service to ferry supplies to the International Space Station. The book's first chapter is a look forward at what NASA plans for the next quarter century, but this misplaced preview delays launch of the main story. Readers also might wish Duggins had shared more of his reporter's experiences in covering the shuttle program. Nevertheless, this history is a worthy addition to the recent torrent of books about the American space program. Illus. (Oct. 21)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Surveying the history of the space shuttle, Duggins delivers descriptions of the system amid explanations of the aims of human spaceflight. Knowledgeable on the subject as NPR's space-shuttle reporter, Duggins relates the technological and financial compromises that resulted in the final design of the shuttle launch configuration, which is far different from NASA's original blueprint. Nevertheless, it was the ticket to space, and Duggins' original narrative elements portray the experiences of several shuttle crew members in applying to become astronauts and recounts their subsequent missions. For backdrop to these human-interest stories, Duggins constructs the arc of shuttle history, including the Challenger and Columbia catastrophes, of course, but emphasizing the shuttle's chronic problems of costliness and of the search for an inspiring purpose. After assembling the International Space Station, the shuttle was retired, leaving NASA shooting for the moon again with proposed successor spacecraft depicted in image and word. With its history and status-report aspects, his informed report will engage readers concerned with the space program. Taylor, Gilbert

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University Press of Florida; 1st edition (October 21, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 081303146X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0813031460
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,160,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,088 in Astronautics & Space Flight
- #4,365 in Aeronautics & Astronautics (Books)
- #193,218 in United States History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
18 ratings

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Pat Duggins

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Pat Duggins is News Director at Alabama Public Radio, and the author of two books about the space program, "Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program," and "Trailblazing Mars: NASA's Next Giant Leap," both published by University Press of Florida.

Duggins is known as the "voice" of NASA coverage on National Public Radio, providing coverage of 102 Space Shuttle missions, as well as flights by Russia, China, and other nations. This includes three hours of "live" radio coverage during Weekend Edition with Scott Simon following the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003. This was Duggins' second Shuttle disaster, having covered the Challenger accident in 1986.

Since the publication of "Final Countdown," he has spoken about the world's space efforts at Harvard University, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and on C-Span's BookTV.

Customer reviews

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Top reviews from the United States

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Cindy BTop Contributor: Knitting

Fantastic and Riveting!

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2020

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The author brings the space program to life! This book is riveting and not heavy on the technical. But does not shy away from facts. I’ve been huge into space since I was little. And I still learned so much by reading/listening to it! Fantastic writing and a treat to enjoy.

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Roger D. Davis

Final Countdown

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2010

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Good book by author whose news reports I had listened to and even recorded off the radio as I followed the shuttle program.

One person found this helpful

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Avert Inc

Less on the shuttle and more on Mars and the Moon

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2009

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This book appeared to me to be about the changes that will take place around Nasa once the shuttles are used cars. However it seemed to drift from that subject to more on what is to come at NASA, which is good, but not how the book was described.

3 people found this helpful

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Kerry63

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2014

Verified Purchase

Nice book, nice price

Helpful

History and Future of the Shuttle & NASA

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2011

You don't have to be a space junkie or nerd to enjoy this book. It's a great blend of the technical side of the Space Shuttle and the people behind the scenes making it happen. The history of how the Shuttle came about, the design choices, capabilities and limitations are all told here. The biggest challenge faced by NASA was finding a mission for the Shuttle that would capture the imagination & interest of Americans. In a twist of irony, the Shuttle's routine launches led to complacency with Americans. Indeed, as one Apollo astronaut observed, NASA was surprised when Apollo worked and Americans were surprised when the Shuttle did not.

Before the Apollo manned missions to moon ended, work began on designing a reusable space craft. This book does not attempt to cover every single mission, but does hit the special ones and of course, the tragedies of the Challenger and Columbia. Author Pat Duggins is not a scientist, but a news analyst for a public broadcast station in FL, so he can relay these stories in an easy, accessible way that is very enjoyable. He presents an honest appraisal of NASA, the problems and successes they've had over the years.

Final Countdown is more than just the history of the Shuttle. It is also about what happens next in the space program- perhaps more importantly, what is not happening now. Budget cuts are bad enough, but lack of a mission to generate public support is the real problem. I've always been interested in the Apollo Program; I was nine when we landed on the moon. This book catches the reader up on what happened in the 1980's and 90's, since many, like myself, did not pay attention. I'd recommend this to anyone who has interest in the Shuttle, NASA, and space exploration.

2 people found this helpful

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Roger D. Launius

A Fine Overview of the Space Shuttle Program and its Place in the History of Space Exploration

Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2008

Pat Duggins is one of the most respected journalists currently covering NASA's human spaceflight program, offering insightful analysis of the subject for National Public Radio from his base at WMFE-FM in Orlando, Florida. "Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program" is a combined valentine/criticism of the Space Shuttle program that has operated from the Kennedy Space Center since 1981. It takes as its entrée the decision made in the aftermath of the Columbia accident on February 1, 2003, to retire the fleet by 2010 and to develop a new human spaceflight vehicle, the Orion capsule powered to orbit by the Ares I booster, to replace it.

While Duggins's concerns are very present tense, concentrating on the demise of the Space Shuttle program and its replacement, he also travels back in time to relate the history of the shuttle from its approval in the aftermath of NASA's hugely successful Apollo Moon landing program. He takes a highly anecdotal approach to relating this story, relating in journalistic fashion episodes in the history of the shuttle--some uncovered in his reporting on the program over the years--that illuminate its evolution. Mostly this is a straightforward narrative, told in an engaging style, with lavish personal tales to punctuate it. While entertaining, there is little in this book the members of the aerospace community will not already be at least somewhat cognizant.

As Duggins reports, the Space Shuttle was intended to make spaceflight routine, safe, and relatively inexpensive. Although NASA considered a variety of configurations, some of them quite exotic, it settled on a stage-and-one-half partially reusable vehicle with an approved development price tag of $5.15 billion. On January 5, 1972, President Nixon announced the decision to build a Space Shuttle. He did so for both political reasons and for national prestige purposes. Politically, it would help a lagging aerospace industry in key states he wanted to carry in the 1972 election, especially California, Texas, and Florida. But building the shuttle would also reaffirm the U.S.'s superpower status and help restore confidence in the nation's technological genius. After a decade of development, on April 12, 1981, Columbia took off for the first orbital test mission. It was successful and after only the fourth flight in 1982, President Ronald Reagan declared the system "operational." It would henceforth carry all U.S. government payloads; military, scientific, and even commercial satellites could all be deployed from its payload bay. In the end, Duggins notes, the shuttle program was an engagingly ambitious effort that developed an exceptionally sophisticated vehicle, one that no other nation on Earth could have built at the time. As such it had been enormously successful. At the same time, the shuttle was essentially a continuation of space spectaculars, à la Apollo, and its much-touted capabilities were not fully realized. Despite its efforts in constructing the International Space Station, it made far fewer flights and conducted far fewer scientific experiments than NASA had publicly predicted. This is a story well told in many venues, but Duggins relates it with a journalistic eye toward entertaining the reader while also informing.

Sometimes, Duggins offers interesting insights unknown to all but the most diligent of students. For example, he highlights the supreme place of the U.S. human spaceflight program that resulted from the presence of the Space Shuttle. As Duggins observed, much to the chagrin of rivals in space exploration "The years of the space shuttle were relatively comfortable ones for NASA and the American public, where its place in the world of space exploration was concerned....With the exception of the Russians, anyone who wanted to go into orbit had to come to NASA 'hat in hand' and ask for a seat on the shuttle" (p. 27). NASA used that superiority, as did other U.S. officials, as a foreign policy tool during both the cold war and since. Likewise, Duggins's discussion of the Challenger accident in 1986 was quite excellent, offering a short, inclusive, and incisive account of the accident, its causes, and its ramifications (pp. 74-95).

For all if its strengths as a well-written, engaging work of history about a topic that can become endlessly technical and difficult to follow, "Final Countdown" is really "once over lightly" as a sophisticated historical account of the shuttle program. As an introductory work it is outstanding. For more detailed discussions there are also several other works on the history of the program that readers will want to pursue. The most important of these is Dennis R. Jenkins's masterful "Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System, the First 100 Missions" (North Branch, MN: Speciality Press, 2001, 3rd Edition), a new edition of which is in preparation and intended to appear at the end of the shuttle program. As it is, Pat Duggins is to be commended for writing a useful, breezy history of the program, one useful as an introduction for students.

6 people found this helpful

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Tammy Powley

Tells It Like It Was

Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2008

I discovered this book while doing research on Kennedy Space Center and found it really helpful. As someone who was "there" during much of the story covered by Duggins, I found his information to be accurate and enlightening. It was also a lot less dry than most of the other related books I was reading on this topic. In particular, I was impressed by his candid narrative. Many of the books I reviewed on KSC and NASA seemed to gloss over issues that may have put the agencies in a bad light, but Duggins was able to tell the truth about what happened using an unbiased voice.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2015

Verified Purchase

Brilliant

Barbara Bailey

What's the Matter with NASA

Reviewed in Canada on June 1, 2014

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After visiting the Kennedy Space Centre I wanted more information on the end of the Space shuttle program. This book walks the reader through why the program was never a total success and why NASA failed to deal with some internal issues that affected the program. A great read for anyone who looks to the stars and wonders about those who have ventured to space.

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