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Title: The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America's Race in Space
ISBN: 0312263511
Author:
Eugene Cernan
Donald A. Davis
Publicate Date: 2009-06-23
Publish: 2009-06-23
List Price: $15.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.83
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $2.07
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.85
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1: The Last Man on the Moon
A great story about a boy perusing his dreem of flinging jet planes and going above and beond even what Gene dreamed. The personal side of Genes familey and the sacerfices of All
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2: bad read
A surprisingly bad read.I thought I was going to get a detailed, engaging and POSITIVE story about the Apollo program and Apollo 17 in particular. What I did get was a trip in egocentrism, bad-mouthing and disturbingly irrational reasoning. I won't go into detail, but here is a short example of this:in a peer vote Mr. Cernan voted Rusty Schweickart, Walt Cunningham
and Buzz Aldrin as the worst---because Schweickart was an "irreverant intellectual",Aldrin liked talking about rendezvous and Cunningham because he drove a Porsche instead of a Corvette.Huh...I won't even go into the rest, it is just more of the same bashing.Unless you are a huge fan of his or just like grandomaniacs don't waste your money on this.I've read several books on NASA and Apollo in particular--By Andrew Chaikin, Colin Burgess,Tom Wolfe, Michael Collins, Deke Slayton and Frank Borman, to name just a few.This is on the bottom of my list--- not worth getting it even as a present.
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3: This book answers the question: What did it feel like?
When I started to read The Last Man on the Moon I wondered: What did it feel like to walk in space and on the moon? I got more than I bargained for. I enjoyed one of the greatest true adventures of all times when Cernan removed the shackles of the earth and took me to places where few have gone.
Cernan's book is exceptional at describing what it felt like to be an astronaut in the 1960s and what it was like to walk in space and on the moon.
One of the parts I could relate to best was his descriptions of a space walk during a Gemini mission and his moon walks. His descriptions of a pressurized suit that was tough to move and navigate in were amazing. As a diver who has been to places such as the Galapagos islands (with cold waters) I know what its like to have a life support system and bulky suit. Cernan's descriptions helped me understand (just a little) what it is like to walk in space and on the moon.
There were many close calls in the space programs that were truly nail biters. For example, during the Apollo 10 mission Gene Cernan discusses Tom Stafford and himself spinning out of control while just above the moon. The countless hours of training and razor sharp skills of the astronauts saved them. Stafford pulled them out at the last couple of seconds just before they would have crashed into the moon.
There were also stories of tragedies such as the loss of the three men in the fire of Apollo 1. Everyone on the space program was deeply saddened. Afterwards everyone's resolve to go to the moon safely reached a new level of commitment.
The book is definitely a page turner with many amusing antidotes. One story that sticks out in my mind is when Cernan explains that the early astronauts were like rock stars (they could do almost anything they wanted to). For example, they would let there wives know they were coming home in the evening by flying right over their homes with their jets before landing at a local base (a true flyby). Then they would jump into their Corvettes and drive like a bats out of h**l to their homes screeching into the driveways. This is stuff that legends are made of.
Cernan writing style is engaging and fascinating. He is both a strong Critical Thinker and philosopher rolled into one.
For example, in one telling excerpt he discusses the importance of going to the moon as a commander, not just walking on it. His thoughts are summed up when he says: "I have always believed that destiny is a matter of personal choice, where you carefully think out your decision, consider the downside, accept the risk of being wrong, and press on."
Cernan eloquently writes about his passion for space travel when he says: "Our legacy is that humans are no longer shackled to the Earth. We opened the door to tomorrow, and our trips to another celestial body will rank as the ultimate triumph in the Age of Achievement. And for the price, it was the biggest bargain in history."
He goes on to say: "Sometimes it seems that Apollo came before its time. President Kennedy reached far into the twenty-first century, grabbed a decade of time and slipped it neatly into the 1960's and 1970s."
I have been fortunate to meet Gene Cernan on a few occasions at Astronaut gatherings in the past couple of years. He is one of the greatest advocates for the space program and is a gentleman and a scholar. He still has a bounce in his step and a twinkle in his eye...and I wouldn't be surprised if he has a little mischief in him as well.
Once at a dinner I was sitting at Cernan's table and someone asked him whether seeing the moon was different from earth orbit or from the moon.
Gene Cernan got very quiet and thoughtful and said that it was entirely different. He went on to say that from orbit the earth is beautiful with its blue oceans, majestic large land masses and more. Then he paused and got very serious. He said from the moon the view of the earth was unbelievable. He went on to say that seeing this little blue ball that hung in black space by an invisible string (axis) that it turned on was unbelievable. You could see in his eyes that he had a life changing experience when he saw it from the front porch of the moon many years ago.
There are several excellent books on the early space program. The Last Man on the Moon is one of the best of the best.
The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking
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4: Exceptionally well-written. It's a pleasure to read.
It's no surprise that it's well-written considering how many journalists (and potential co-authors) Gene Cernan knows. It is accessible to all because they kept it non-technical.
The author keeps his family in the forefront and puts his wife and daughter on a pedestal. He lets us in on how an Apollo astronaut's career could be a real marriage-tester due to his time away from home, and the wife being on stage. I liked the way they chronicled the story not only with dates, but with what songs were playing on the radio and what the non-NASA headlines were.
Personal judgments abound. He pulls no punches on Buzz Aldrin and a few other astronauts, resurrects the Apollo 15 "scandal," and then runs a one-man campaign to redeem and lionize Alan Shepard, burying the screw-ups of Apollo 14. (For those who consider Shepard a hero, as I once did, may I suggest Andrew Chaikin's authoritative and well-researched tome A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts.) Another thing I found really different about Cernan's memoir: Wally Schirra is finally vindicated as an unsung hero of the space race. The author recaps Schirra's brash manner during the Apollo 7 flight as others have, but also points out that Wally had been that way during the previous 21 months (since The Fire), getting in everyone's face with his demands at North American and other contractors. It made me realize how much Wally Schirra had to do with us (people) getting to the moon by the time we did.
Any Apollo aficionado would be remiss without reading this. (Ditto for Chaikin, and Jim Lovell's "Apollo 13.") This is an inspiring American success story.
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5: Very detailed account of all of the Moon missions
I liked this book for its coverage of all the space flights from the beginning with Gemini to the end with Apollo. Gene was in fact the "last man on the moon" as we stopped going to the moon after his flight! He did more in his lifetime than most anyone. He started as a Navy pilot, about to go into Vietnam, when he got pulled for astronaut duty. I liked reading his descriptions of the celebrity lifestyle the original astronauts lived, with lots of parties at the Cape in Florida (while the wives were banished to their homes outside Houston!). I thought he touched on what it was like for the wives to live with a larger-than-life "space hero" in their midst, but he pulled back in some places. He does give his opinion on all the famous astronauts like Al Shephard and Neil Armstrong, and what he thought of their personalities and also their ranking as far as the best of the astronauts. The only downside to the book was, because Gene was involved in so many space flights, both as a backup crew and regular crew, that by the time you get to his last moon flight it's a bit routine hearing once again about getting the rocket ready for launch, stuffing themselves into their bulky spacesuits, etc. Overall, the book is very thorough and good but maybe could have used more humorous stories. I also liked the very beginning of the book where he talks about his grandparents old-time farm in Antigo, WI, without any running water or electricity.
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