posted 04-11-2016 09:43 AM               

In October 1968 Donn Eisele flew with fellow astronauts Walt Cunningham and Wally Schirra into Earth orbit in Apollo 7. The first manned mission in the Apollo program and the first manned flight after a fire during a launch pad test killed three astronauts in early 1967, Apollo 7 helped restart NASA's manned-spaceflight program.

Known to many as a goofy, lighthearted prankster, Eisele worked his way from the U.S. Naval Academy to test pilot school and then into the select ranks of America's prestigious astronaut corps. He was originally on the crew of Apollo 1 before being replaced due to injury. After that crew died in a horrific fire, Eisele was on the crew selected to return Americans to space. Despite the success of Apollo 7, Eisele never flew in space again, as divorce and a testy crew commander led to the three astronauts being labeled as troublemakers.

Unbeknownst to everyone, after his retirement as a technical assistant for manned spaceflight at NASA's Langley Research Center in 1972, Eisele wrote in detail about his years in the air force and his time in the Apollo program. Long after his death, Francis French discovered Eisele's unpublished memoir, and Susie Eisele Black (Donn's widow) allowed French access to her late husband's NASA files and personal effects. Readers can now experience an Apollo story they assumed would never be written as well as the story behind its discovery.

• Hardcover: 192 pages
  
• University of Nebraska Press (January 1, 2017)
  
• ISBN-10: 0803262833
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0803262836

posted 04-11-2016 04:42 PM               

Through Francis, I was able to read the first, raw manuscript that he and Susie located when going through Eisele's personal effects for information to be used in our joint "In the Shadow of the Moon" book, and Donn certainly pulls no punches in his narrative. It's not a huge book, as it was mostly comprised of unedited stories that Eisele was putting together, possibly with a view to having it published one day, but perhaps he was holding back on this as some of his views on certain people and events are particularly forthright.

posted 11-01-2016 02:27 PM               

A posthumous memoir gives an unsung astronaut his due.

In the annals of manned space flight, Donn Eisele (1930-1987) would seem to be the forgotten man, his name not as recognizable as that of crewmates Wally Schirra and Walt Cunningham, let alone John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. Yet the author was a member of Apollo 7, the first manned mission in the Apollo program following the tragic launch that had killed their predecessors.

Well after his death, his widow shared some artifacts that included various drafts of a memoir, mainly focusing on his formative experiences in becoming an astronaut and his vivid impressions of the historic mission. Yet the book also suggests his bitterness at being marginalized in the aftermath of the mission and the tensions between the astronauts and those on the ground, particularly those more concerned with the public image of the space program than with safety...

posted 11-15-2016 12:53 AM               

But Francis has done a masterful job of reassembling this manuscript (a terrific story in itself, which he relates in his foreword), and the story of the flight of Apollo 7, as related by Eisele himself, is quite fascinating and informative, with a bunch of new stories thrown in.

posted 11-22-2016 04:45 PM               

It almost sounds too good to be true: an unpublished memoir written by an astronaut who piloted the very first Apollo flight, sitting in a pile of papers in his widow’s closet. And yet that’s exactly what I came across when I was looking through the many boxes of space memorabilia and lifetime memories at the home of Susie Eisele Black, the widow of Apollo 7 astronaut Donn Eisele...

posted 11-23-2016 09:59 AM               

I have the unique perspective of being friends with the author, Francis French, knowing, working with and being good friends of Apollo 7's Walt Cunningham and Wally Schirra (I wrote the Foreword to the book "Sigma 7: The Six Mercury Orbits of Walter M. Schirra, Jr." by Colin Burgess) and consider myself well versed in the flight of Apollo 7. I thought I had heard all of the possible stories over the years having known these three people on a personal level — but the voice of Donn Eisle was always a mystery.

Francis was lucky enough to stumble on the unpublished, raw, unedited comments of Donn Eisle through his [now] late wife Susan Eisle Black. These were untouched for almost 50 years. Francis has skillfully taken Donn Eisle's words and without adding any comments based on his own extensive knowledge of this flight, was able to bring Donn's voice back to life in 2016 from words that were written in the early 1970's. After reading "Apollo Pilot" I now have a complete picture of what that 11 day span in October 1968 was actually like. It has been said that Deke Slayton put a lot of thought into the makeup of each crew for Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and early Shuttle. After reading Donn's viewpoint, I have no idea how he put this particular crew together. However, the wonderment of Donn's one and only spaceflight shines through in his own words and it is well worth the time to read the book. While reading, I had to ignore Wally and Walt's well known comments out of my head so I could concentrate on Eisele's point of view. The first flight of Apollo has been forgotten through time and we all must remember that if Apollo 7 and its crew did not do well, Apollo 11 would have never landed on the moon "before the end of the decade", if at all.

My hat is off to Francis for not tinkering with this historic account of Donn Eisle. I'm sure it was tempting. If you're interested in the early Apollo program - or spaceflight at all - this is a must read and should be in your library. Well done, Francis! Thank you for allowing us to "hear" what Eisle was thinking.

posted 11-23-2016 10:49 AM               

The flight of Apollo 7 is the central theme of the book. Eisele speaking for himself challenges some long-held assumptions about his role on Apollo 7, and it's refreshing to read the long-missing third perspective at last. His take on Wally Schirra as mission commander is especially interesting, and I'll let those who haven't read it discover that on their own. But what surprised me most was how eloquent Eisele is about the wonder of flying in space, and some passages of "Apollo Pilot" are downright beautiful to read.

posted 11-24-2016 11:26 AM               

I was honored to be asked to blurb the back cover for this book; the blurb reads:

"At long last, the enigmatic Donn Eisele tells his story. Eisele holds nothing back in his memoirs discussing 1960s-era NASA and his historic Apollo 7 mission. His blunt reminiscences make other Apollo astronaut autobiographies look like kids’ books. His memoirs illuminate his frustrations with astronaut life, his unique, often quirky sense of humor, and his thrill at the view from Earth's orbit. Like it or not, Eisele tells it like it is — his long-silenced voice is finally brought to vivid life."

Expanding upon that, editor Francis French's opportunity to compile Eisele's memoirs - pulled from typed, sometimes hard-to-read aged onionskin paper - benefits spaceflight history in that it adds a long-missing puzzle piece. Many in the spaceflight community and beyond were (and continue to be) curious about Eisele's views regarding his mission, and his still-controversial personal decisions made around that time. His memoirs, sometimes very raw and edgy, fill in the gaps, and finally we know what it is like to hear his voice. An unmissable read.

posted 11-24-2016 06:19 PM               

Donn Eisele did all that was expected of him during the flight of Apollo 7, and much, much more. His work was ultimately instrumental in America achieving the lunar-landing goal set by President Kennedy, yet today he is sadly remembered as an enigmatic and largely unknown part of what was later termed a rebellious - even mutinous - crew. It is an unfair reflection on his many achievements during his only space mission.

Despite his heavy workload, Donn Eisele also took time out to gaze at the blue planet they were orbiting, and offers vivid, almost poetic descriptions of what he saw and how he felt at those times.

Kudos should also be paid to Amy Shira Teitel for giving the reader a reflective suffix on the history of the Apollo program, and especially the historic mission carried out by the crew of Apollo 7.

posted 11-27-2016 03:35 PM               

But since his passing almost three decades ago, while countless others have told their stories about Eisele, we've not been able to hear his — until now. Apollo Pilot is a lost treasure of the Apollo age, a missing piece from one of the more fascinating tales of the early space age.

posted 12-02-2016 02:30 PM               

'Apollo Pilot': Late astronaut Donn Eisele's lost words rediscovered in new memoir

Donn Eisele became the thirtieth person, worldwide, to orbit the Earth as a member of NASA's first crew to launch aboard an Apollo spacecraft in 1968.

An officer in the Air Force, test pilot and later Peace Corps director and businessman, Eisele, 57, died 29 years ago on Friday (Dec. 2) without putting his experiences as an Apollo 7 astronaut to print, or so almost everyone thought.

"It's almost cliché to talk about 'lost' documents — and this one was not truly lost. However, it had been forgotten to everyone except Susie Eisele Black, Donn's widow, who may have been the only other person ever to read it until now," said Francis French, the editor of "Apollo Pilot: The Memoir of Astronaut Donn Eisele" (University of Nebraska Press, 2017).

posted 12-11-2016 09:01 AM               

Perhaps because, sadly, he was unable to go back to his writings and revise what he had put down on paper, his thoughts and reminisces have a refreshing honesty about them, untouched by any second thoughts or need for self censor. In turn, it makes for one of the best, most insightful astronaut memoirs I have read.

We must all be so grateful to Francis French for finally giving Donn his voice.
As his late wife Susie writes in the afterword:

They'll never be able to take the legacy of being an Apollo astronaut away from Donn. Never, ever, ever.

posted 12-11-2016 02:17 PM               

From what I've read Francis had quite a task to take those notes from a box and turn them into a book. Thanks Francis.

My only problem is that I no longer have enough room on a single book shelf to hold all of the Outward Odyssey books. Darn good problem to have!

posted 12-27-2016 05:12 PM            

A great book which gives a voice, after 30 years,to one of the lesser known Apollo astronauts.

First, Amazon, I don't know where you get your 192 pages from. It is a lot shorter than that at closer to 140 pages and that includes Susie Eisele Black's (excellent) afterword and Amy Shira Teitel's historical overview. The Eisele manuscript is only 118 pages long.

Francis has done a great job bringing this book to print in as unchanged fashion as he has. Without giving anything away, Eisele is very candid in his feelings toward Apollo management and also other astronauts, but his main venom is reserved for senior Apollo management, exacerbated by the "preventable" Apollo 1 fire. He mentions late in the book that most astronauts had a dislike for management. He doesn't go into astro-politics as much as one would have thought, but his views on some named astronauts are very clear,

Some overview points: First, his views are very raw, and seem to have been penned while emotions were still high. It is indicated later in the book by others that the book was written over different periods probably in the 1972-6 timeframe, so not long after Eisele left NASA and the USAF. I get the impression that if Eisele had completed this book while alive, much of the venom would have been edited out, either by Eisele due to the passage of time, or by his editor. So, it may have become a much more dull book.

Second, there are now three first hand accounts of Apollo 7 (Schirra's "Schirra's Space", Cunningham's "The All American Boys" and of course Apollo Pilot), so we get an interesting comparison of each astronaut's view of the others during the mission. That is interesting because Cunningham basically wrote that Eisele was a "follower" who got (badly) influenced by his dominant Commander and copied his abrasive behavior in training and in space, without necessarily having good reason to do so. (Eisele counters this at one point by saying he would rather have been abrasive, got the job done and lived to tell the tale than "be remembered for what a nice guy he was"). Both Eisele and Cunningham were critical of Schirra, but Eisele adopted a largely neutral (if not favourable) view of Cunningham. Eisele is particularly critical of Schirra's laid-back approach and his dis-interest in and unfamiliarity with the technical aspects of Apollo 7.

Third, Susie Eisele Black's Afterword is excellent, and gives a good insight into how Eisele's divorce was treated (from her perspective). Frankly, I wish this part of the book had been a lot longer, as it was truly fascinating.

As short as the book is, it does contain a lot of detail, and it is worth reading. The book does a very good job of giving a voice to one of the lesser known of the Group 3 astronauts.

posted 01-02-2017 02:05 PM               

I keep thinking about a particular passage as he describes seeing pad leader Guenter Wendt on launch day..."Guenter was the last person I saw before liftoff and that was the last time I ever saw him. Ironic, in a way."

Passages like that stay with you. Eisele really captured the human element of his experiences. A very good book.

posted 01-20-2017 02:36 AM               

I had read somewhere years earlier that Donn had written a children’s book, but when I asked Susie about it, she told me that Donn had never finished it. However, I did not know that the draft was sitting in that closet.

In addition, there were drafts of speeches and other presentations Donn had made, and — most interestingly — a raw, no-holds-barred memoir draft for adults that delved into the anger he had felt at his managers, as well as tales of the illicit things astronauts got up to when the media was not looking. It was a very revelatory look behind the public astronaut image.

posted 01-27-2017 05:55 AM            

It is very well written and to read Donn Eisele's own account of his life as an astronaut at that historical time is a tremendous bonus. What a shame he never got around to writing of his time as back up to Apollo 10 as that would have been very interesting. His version of his leaving, and what he thought of Gordon Cooper not getting the role of commander of Apollo 13 and his thoughts on Alan Shepard putting himself on a prime crew instead of Cooper would have been enlightening.