After finishing the Times Books series on the American Presidents several months ago, my next systematic reading project has been memoirs by the moonshot-era US astronauts. A surprisingly large number of them have written these, and I'd already read several of them with enjoyment, so I decided to finish the set. I didn't read them in any particular order, so I've waited to finish them before presenting an ordered report.
Despite the fact that the astronauts all had pretty much the same career, they're still interesting to read in multiple. That same career consisted of life as a military air pilot (it's subsequent astronauts who've had more varied backgrounds), usually backed by some schooling in engineering, then they get themselves signed up to work for NASA, where instead of flying jets every day, they spend years preparing for the one or two spaceflights that are all most of them are going to get. Finally either sated or frustrated with being an astronaut, they go off to find something else to do to occupy the rest of their careers, and this can vary considerably from one to another.
I've limited this to personal memoirs (and books so packaged), omitting most children's books and semi-official "press release" package books like We Seven and First on the Moon. The series will begin in my next post.
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