posted November 03, 2003 10:22 AM               

The book is chaulk full of information concerning the lives of men most of us only know as footnotes in the history of the race to the moon. Fallen Astronauts has brought these men to life and provided facts about their lives, the accidents that took their lives as well as the potential changes in the flight rotation caused by their untimely deaths.

It is well worth reading as it fills gaps in the knowledge most of us have about the race to the moon.

On a side note, based on some of the current threads about Soyuz 11, Fallen Astronauts provides information about the death of that crew also.

Overall, an excellent addition to your resource library.

posted November 03, 2003 11:56 AM            

Or just go to www.amazon.com and search for "Fallen Astronauts"

posted November 03, 2003 11:57 PM               

I just finished it and still have a lump in my throat after reading the moving recollections from the dedication of the Astronaut's Memorial, which I have visited many times. Thank you once again for bringing the stories of these lost heroes to my bookshelf. You have done a great service to their families and to every student of space flight history. Bravo!!!

posted November 04, 2003 12:13 PM            

A couple of people have asked me the most direct way to pre-order this signed book from the Fleet. The best way is to E-mail Kathy Loder in the store, at: kloder@rhfleet.org

Thanks,

posted November 04, 2003 12:21 PM               

The hardcover will be available for order for $39.95.

posted November 25, 2003 08:58 PM               

The 3000 townspeople of Quanah really turned on some sort of celebration when I arrived, accompanied by good friend (and van driver) Wally Funk, one of the Mercury 13 gals. We both gave talks at Quanah High School to hundreds of local kids, and to various groups within Quanah. One highlight was being privileged to take part in the dedication of the new Ed Givens Space Room in Quanah's A&P Depot Museum. Tom Stafford sent me a few words to read out, as he had opened the (now relocated) original Space Room back in 1977, and was a great friend of Ed Givens.

Earlier in the day I was introduced to two of Ed's children, Cathrine and Dianne, and it was lovely to meet them after all this time. We made a small pilgrimage out to the Quanah Memorial Cemetery where Ed, his brother, parents and antecedents are buried, and quietly paid our respects. It was a highly emotional day, and no more so than when I showed the girls three photos of Ed's funeral that a Quanah local had found in the newspaper's photo archives. In my book, Cathrine wrote that the one real sadness of her life was that, as just a four-year-old, her mother had not taken her to her father's funeral, presumably to spare her the sadness. Dianne, who was only a babe in arms when her father died, looked at the photos and said to her older sister, "I thought you said you never went to Dad's funeral?" When Cathrine confirmed this, Dianne pointed to one of my photos and said, "Well, sis, here you are, sitting in the second row of seats!" At this point Cathrine just broke down, and when she later made a short speech at the dediaction, she expressed her profound happiness at finding out through me that she had indeed been at her father's funeral. It's one small correction I'm happy to make in the book should it go to a second edition, and one of the reasons I love writing non-fiction - it is intensely satisfying when such moments occur. It provided a very poignant touch to what had already been a wonderful day spent celebrating the life of an extraordinary man whose dreams were cut short by a simple but fatal accident. I may only be a very small voice in the distant wilderness, but I am not going to rest until I get his name on the Astronaut Memorial Mirror. It broke my heart to see the tremendous love these girls had for a father they barely knew, and yet the board of the Astronaut Memorial Foundation vapidly dismisses any suggestion that he should be on there, with their pathetic "he was off duty" response. If they could know the hurt that this rejection has caused this beautiful family, they might change their minds. Ed Givens was not off-duty the day he died - not astronaut was ever off duty back then, and even now. He gave his life for NASA and his nation, and these people should be proud to recognise this, not slam the door in his family's face whenever the issue is raised.

One side story - Tom Stafford told me that he was actually supposed to have been at the same function as Ed that night, but had a prior appointment that precluded his attendance. "Do you know, I could have been in that car wih Ed that night," he told me. Quite obviously, this would have changed the circumstances and Ed probably wouldn't have crashed or died that night, but would NASA have placed Tom Stafford's name on the Astronaut memorial Mirror had they both been killed that night? Would NASA and the AMF have considered Tom, even though he had made two flights by then, an "off-duty stronaut" and declined to recognise his achievements? I don't think so.

posted December 06, 2003 02:16 PM               

Its a 5 star book from front to back.

Happy Reading..........Adam

posted December 10, 2003 04:28 PM               

I can still recall the devastation I felt when Ted Freeman died in the crash of his T-38; I was only 17 at the time and my interest in manned space flight had really developed quickly into a deep fascination with the subject that, despite several tragedies, has lasted and still endures. A few weeks before he died I'd received a handwritten letter from Freeman, which lent a person aspect to his loss. Same for C.C. Williams, who also sent me a nice handwritten letter (ah, those were the days!) And of course I received a letter from Charlie Bassett in which he spoke of the death of Ted Freeman but said we had to move on in our quest for knowledge despite the pain. Then he too was gone.

posted December 21, 2003 05:49 AM               

Just finished reading your excellent book - many congratulations on an excellent work that really did need to be written.
I was very interested to read your views on the possible causes of Gagarin's MIG accident.
At a recent show in Coventry, UK, Pavel Popovich gave a talk about his experiences of the Russian space programme and, at the end of it, I asked him for his personal view on the most likely cause of Gagarin's accident.
He told our group that he'd headed up the investigating panel post the accident and that their unofficial view was that, most likely, there had been a problem with the oxygen supply in the MIG which caused both Gagarin & his instructor to lose consciousness. He then felt that they had regained consciousness around 10,000 ft when the Mig was spinning to earth in cloud and had been trying to regain control until the last second, which accounted for them not ejecting.
He also said that there had never been any official Russian government investigation into the accident, which does seem strange bearing in mind the world fame of Gagarin at that time.
I guess we'll never really know for certain what happened and there will always remain an element of mystery surrounding the accident.

Anyhow, many thanks again for writing such an interesting book. What's the next one about?!

posted December 21, 2003 07:19 AM               

Bert Vis is the guy most responsible for the cosmonaut biographies in that chapter - all I did was write a prelude and carry out a little light editing. So I bow to him on this one. Interesting to read what Popovich had to say about the crash, but it doesn't seem we'll ever know the actual cause. Bert would have based his findings on interviews and private conversations with cosmonauts and others related to the space program, and I'm sure he's also discussed the subject off-record with Popovich, whom he has met many times in the past decade or so. I value his contribution to the book, and also his friendship. I knew I didn't have a hope in Hades myself of sourcing the material and people I knew Bert could, so it was really good to have his gracious input into the book.

I'm currently writing another book on several spaceflight pioneers together with a new co-author, and all will be revealed around the end of next year. Nothing startling, mind you, but it's a project near and dear to both our hearts, and it's coming along really well. Sorry to have to be so mysterious, but that's just an author being protective of an idea. However it will contain a lot of astronaut biographical material.

posted December 27, 2003 05:18 PM               

The importance and uniqueness of this book can hardly be expressed by me in this post. It is simply a "must have" for anyone even remotely interested in the beginnings of manned space flight. I am grateful to Colin, his collaborators, and probably most of all to the families of the fallen whose personal recollections serve to keep their names and their dreams alive for all time.

posted December 30, 2003 02:08 AM               

Although he won't respond (at least not to me after several attempts) you could try emailing a message to the President of the AMF, Stephen Feldman, PhD., to voice your concern. I have been told that the reason Givens is not there is because he was "off duty" when he died in a car crash. You might point this out: (a) Ed Givens was in the USAF and was a NASA astronaut. If you are a part of EITHER service you are on duty 24/7. This is written into Air Force regulations, and the one-time Chief of the Astronaut Office, Alan Shepard, is on record as saying that an astronaut "is on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week." (b) The board has also said that Givens was not in training for a mission. Really? I could have sworn he was part of the three-man support crew for both Apollo 1 and Apollo 7 before he died. He was also helping develop the AMU for both NASA and the Air Force MOL program. (c) Bob Lawrence got his name on the Mirror because he was a USAF astronaut designee, but died in a plane crash. Ed Givens was ALSO a USAF astronaut designee (in fact he was in the same ARPS qualifying school as Lawrence - a school that Givens helped set up), so he too was a USAF astronaut in training for a MOL mission. But unlike Lawrence, Givens was ALSO a NASA astronaut, and had completed his astronaut probationary training. Lawrence was NOT a NASA astronaut. The only difference is that Lawrence died in a plane crash, while Givens died in a car crash. It's also very obvious that overt political correctness played a very significant role in Lawrence's family getting his name on the Mirror. I do not begrudge Lawrence his place on the Mirror, but where is Ed Givens?

posted January 11, 2004 07:41 AM               

Colin Burgess and his co-authors achieve to create a colorful portrait of each of the deceased astronauts, sometimes so lively one could imagine to stand next to them. A very worthy tribute to some fine pioneers who were just unlucky to be at the wrong place at a wrong time and got killed. Perhaps a few more photos would have been nice (but also expensive to print, I know).

The only portrait I was a bit disappointed about was Grissom's - the stories told here were basically known to me. Do we have to presume that the Grissom family did not co-operate to the same extent that the families of the other "fallen heroes" did?

posted January 11, 2004 04:30 PM               

While co-author Kate Doolan wrote most of this Apollo 1 chapter, I did contact, or attempt to contact, various members of the Grissom family for her. Betty and Scott did respond to my messages, but I was pointed in certain controversial directions where I didn't feel the book should go. I don't think this would come as a huge surprise to those who have followed the fortunes of the family in recent years. While willing to help, and quite friendly, Scott did tend to guide me to previously-published material rather than offering new information.

Promising contacts with members of the White family (Ed's sister was very keen to assist)were continually stymied by a member of the family who took it upon himself to abort all of these leads, while insisting that any and all correspondence be directed through him. As with some other controversial projects in which he has been involved, this family member then reneged on all his promises of assistance and fell silent.

By comparison, Martha Chaffee was very supportive, but sadly offered nothing really new to Roger's story, believing it to have been fully covered in Don Chaffee's biography of his son.

posted June 18, 2004 03:09 PM            

(He wrote the book's foreword).

FF

posted July 07, 2004 09:28 AM               

I just received my hardcover copy of "Fallen Astronauts" in the mail from an online bookseller. It arrived without a dust jacket. Some of the discussions here suggest that that's how the book was issued, but could I just confirm that this is indeed correct?

At first glance, it looks fascinating, and I'm really looking forward to reading it. Thanks for your efforts.

posted July 07, 2004 06:41 PM               

Sadly, that is the way the publishers printed the hardcover. They only produced 500 copies of the hardcover, and told me that in their experience these mostly went to libraries, universities and other such institutions who did not need a dustjacket. While I find that curious, I think they lost a lot of the general market by not producing a hardcover version with a dustjacket.

posted August 29, 2004 08:48 AM               

Your kind words mean a lot to me, and on behalf of Kate and Bert I really appreciate the sentiments expressed in your message. The campaign to get Ed Givens's name on the Memorial Mirror is an ongoing one, and I can assure you that as far as I'm concerned it did not end with the publication of the book. I will say that some of Ed's astronaut contemporaries were quite amazed to read the true story behind his death, and appalled that his name is not on this wonderful tribute to their fallen colleagues.

I will definitely be at Autographica function for all three days, and I look forward to meeting you and other faces-behind-the-collectSPACE-names during that time. I am not there in any official capacity - merely as a paying guest - and I'll be more than happy to sign any copies of the book that anyone cares to bring along. For free!

In answer to the other post, no one was more surprised than me to discover that the hardcover version had been published without a dustjacket. The publishers later told me that as the very limited run of hardcovers (500) was mostly intended for sale to libraries and other institutions they did not see a need for the added expense of a dustjacket, which they said would likely be discarded anyway. It's really sad, because the ones that did make the commercial market (and the bookshelves of members of collectSPACE) look very ordinary indeed without a dustjacket. It's also the reason why you'll never see this version in a regular bookstore. I know that I would be quite upset to buy a brand-new book without the beautiful cover that graces the paperback edition. My only hope is that sales will warrant a reprint of the hardcover edition, and if this happens I will insist on a dustjacket.