posted August 30, 2007 07:47 PM               

As the United States and the Soviet Union went from exploring space to living in it, a space station was conceived as the logical successor to the Apollo moon program. But between conception and execution there was the vastness of space itself, to say nothing of monumental technological challenges. Homesteading Space, by two of Skylab's own astronauts and a NASA journalist, tells the dramatic story of America's first space station from beginning to fiery end.

Homesteading Space is much more than a story of technological and scientific success; it is also an absorbing, sometimes humorous, often inspiring account of the determined, hardworking individuals who shepherded the program through a near-disastrous launch, a heroic rescue, and an exhausting study of Comet Kohoutek, as well as the lab's ultimate descent into the Indian Ocean. Featuring the unpublished in-flight diary of astronaut Alan Bean, the book is replete with the personal recollections and experiences of the Skylab crew and those who worked with them in training, during the mission, and in bringing them safely home.

posted August 31, 2007 12:45 AM               

The books in this series are being released at a rate of two per year, and the next book in the wings is the excellent "To a Distant Day" by Chris Gainor (who also wrote the superb "Arrows to the Moon"). This book, detailing the history of rocketry and astronautics up to the time of Gagarin, will be released early next year, and the Skylab book will be published sometime around the end of next year. So there's still a bit of a wait, but the book is currently going through the editing process. I have read the unedited manuscript, as I can tell you that I am very excited about this book.

As to any signings or tours, that has yet to be discussed.

posted September 07, 2007 10:05 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Sy Liebergot:
I can't help but wonder if "The Skylab Story" book is yet another astronaut book, with no regard to the role that we flight ops guys had in saving and maintaining that bugger.

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Since the book is still in the editing phase with The Powers That Be at the publisher, I'm reluctant to discuss exactly who or what is in the book, since that may be subject to changes beyond our control. I'll defer to Colin in that regard.

I will say that the scope of the book is much larger than the actual manned period in chronology and larger not only than flight crew, but ops in general, in content.

Obviously, in a book of any size about a subject with this much depth to it, there's no way to tell every story, but we've tried to cover as broad a spectrum of the experience as possible.

Collecting those experiences was a tremendous pleasure. Everyone we talked to was delighted at having the opportunity to talk about Skylab, had an amazing passion for the subject, and, very often, considered it the highlight of their career.

posted September 09, 2007 09:49 AM               

Well, I believe that I've said enough on this subject, don't wish to start an e-mail war, just want make sure that the contributions of the Apollo era flight controllers are not overlooked. We're dying off at an alarming rate.

posted September 09, 2007 12:01 PM               

I am very flattered by your interest in this book, and, again, am awed by the passion those involved in Skylab feel for the program.

I feel obligated to make one small factual correction. I still have a copy of your e-mail of 5 Sept. 2006 deferring from participation in the book.

While, as I said earlier, I'm reluctant to discuss details of the book publicly while it's still this early in the editing stage, you are more than welcome to contact me directly if there's anything else I can let you know.

Thanks!

posted September 09, 2007 12:56 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by DavidH:
I feel obligated to make one small factual correction. I still have a copy of your e-mail of 5 Sept. 2006 deferring from participation in the book.

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posted March 12, 2008 10:18 AM            

So far I'd appreciated the effort to make each one part of a collection by using the same layout and spine design.

posted April 09, 2008 09:05 AM            

One sentence of yours puzzled me, however - is there such a thing as "yet another astronaut book" when it comes to Skylab?

It was one of the most amazing space programs ever carried out, with a huge amount of drama and achievement - and yet I can't think of a single book written by Skylab astronauts for adults about the program - before this one.

The nearest we have had is:

- Alan Bean and Bill Pogue writing slim space books for children, neither wholly devoted to Skylab.

- An authorized biography of Jerry Carr by David Shayler, which has yet to be published.

- A biography of Pete Conrad by his widow.

- Space-themed science fiction novels by Bill Pogue and Ed Gibson, a book of Apollo paintings by Bean, and science textbooks by Owen Garriott and Ed Gibson.

But no book about living and working on Skylab written for adults, by Skylab astronauts, before this one.

posted April 09, 2008 09:14 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by FFrench:
One sentence of yours puzzled me, however - is there such a thing as "yet another astronaut book" when it comes to Skylab?

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I don't mean to suggest that there is no value in writing books about the astronaut experience on Skylab. It's just that I personally am not interested in reading books primarily about the astronauts. Hence for me it falls into the category of "yet another astronaut book," alongside the ones on Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle.

(Note also that I can't take credit for the phrase, as I was quoting Sy Liebergot!)

posted April 09, 2008 04:51 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Naraht:
It's just that I personally am not interested in reading books primarily about the astronauts. Hence for me it falls into the category of "yet another astronaut book," alongside the ones on Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle.

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I think you'll be pleased by the broad scope of this book when it does come out, and find plenty of interesting non-astronaut stories in there - I know that I did when reading the draft.

posted April 10, 2008 09:51 AM               

(From a personal perspective, the idea that there's even a possibility that I've co-authored "yet another astronaut book" is kind of cool.)

Obviously, it's not going to be unusual for a book about a human spaceflight program to pay a fair amount of attention to the in-space operations, and Homesteading is no exception. However, a pretty fair amount of the book takes place on the ground, as well.

The book is also not a memoir; my co-authors' personal experiences and recollections certainly are a key foundation of the book, but, in the end, they are just two characters in a larger cast.

I initially approached Owen about working with him on his memoir; after we heard about this project from Colin, he decided that he was much more interested in telling the story of Skylab than his own personal story.

And, ultimately, that's what we've tried to do. Writing the book was an amazing experience because of the sheer level of passion everybody we talked to had for Skylab, from the grunt-level engineers to George Mueller. They were so excited that the story was finally being told like this.

And that, more than anything, was ultimately our goal for the project -- that the story not be lost; that the story of those people's labor of love be recorded for history. There's no way, of course, that we could do justice to all those people, or even to a fraction of the different types of contributions that were made. But we hope that we've captured some impression of what went into making Skylab happen.

(Which is not to say we're not hoping all of you will buy it!)

posted July 24, 2008 05:47 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by FFrench:
I just spotted that the publisher's page for the book now has some very positive review blurbs... I particularly liked the line "a worthy addition to any space library — including, I hope soon, the one aboard today's International Space Station."

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posted July 25, 2008 12:19 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by cspg:
What's this book? An advanced reading copy of some sort?

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posted July 25, 2008 09:24 AM               

And, yes, Francis was kind enough to review an early draft of the book and provide his valuable expertise to help us immensely.

posted September 01, 2008 01:05 AM               

Colin/Francis... might there be a way for advanced copies to be made available to those of us attending the ASF show in November? I'd like to get a couple signed.

posted September 02, 2008 08:13 PM               

As Francis has mentioned, the Skylab book should - based on past experience - be available well before that 1 November Amazon release date. However I've just emailed UNP's marketing people to see if I can get a better idea of a release/availability schedule for you. I'll post their response here.

posted September 03, 2008 03:56 PM               

"We usually get a book in our warehouse two months prior to the publication date," I was informed, "so the book has time to get to the stores by the time reviews come out and people are looking for it."

So in answer to your query, Amazon should have the book and be mailing it out to advance-order customers by the end of the month, or you could buy it direct from the Nebraska Press, at nebraskapress.unl.edu

Hope that helps,

posted September 03, 2008 11:07 PM               

Again, my thanks,

posted October 15, 2008 07:04 PM               

It officially exists.

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posted October 17, 2008 03:09 PM               

The first scheduled, but hopefully not the first chronologically. One of my co-authors has been a little preoccupied lately for some reason, but we should be able to focus more on the book once things are a little more grounded, as it were.

And Joe has ordered several boxes of copies to take to the ASF show at KSC in a few weeks.

posted October 17, 2008 03:50 PM               

On edit: Further clarification; the copy Francis French is holding up in the Star Trek photos is likely the one causing you concern. It is actually a mock-up of the book that was privately produced by the authors a couple of years back for proofreading purposes, using their first draft of the text. Now THAT is a collector's item!

posted October 22, 2008 07:33 AM               

A friend of mine who writes music was inspired to create a Homesteading Space Fanfare for the book.

He did a pretty darned good job with it; it makes me wish there was a movie. Failing that, just listening to it will no doubt make the book seem more epic.

posted October 22, 2008 06:05 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by cspg:
What's this book? An advanced reading copy of some sort?

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