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Amazon.co.uk Review
Bryan Burrough, coauthor of the bestselling Barbarians at the Gate, has a talent for reworking factual accounts so they read like first-rate thrillers. Dragonfly: NASA and the Crisis Aboard Mir is overwhelming in its scope and breadth of detail, culled from one-to-one interviews and transcripts of recorded conversations between the astronauts and cosmonauts on Mir and Russian Mission Control. Burrough delves deeply into the personal and professional lives of the 11 people who lived aboard Mir from 1995 to 1998. What we soon discover is simultaneously disheartening and fascinating: the men and women who would be astronauts must run a gauntlet of hazings, are judged professionally on their personal lives, and win flight assignments through serendipity as often as through hard work. NASA is controlled by cliques and cults of personality: "People don't speak out, because George makes short work of you if you do.... If you get on his bad side, you won't get a flight assignment...." There are "issues dealing with training and the selection of crews that you don't dare speak up about." The down-to-the- last-bolt descriptions of life aboard the station, from what the air smells like to an explanation of "penguin suits" to the distance between the dinner table and the original, now seldom-used toilet-- 2 feet--will thrill space enthusiasts. Space may not be "where no man has gone before" anymore, but it nevertheless provides endless dream fodder for those of us left behind on Earth. --Jhana Bach, Amazon.com
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Synopsis
Presents a behind-the-scenes account of NASA's ambitious and sometimes tumultuous involvement with Russia's problem-plagued Mir space station over three years.
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First Sentence
The little red convertible rockets through the predawn blackness, its sole occupant pressing the accelerator past sixty miles per hour. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The little red convertible rockets through the predawn blackness, its sole occupant pressing the accelerator past sixty miles per hour. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The cover blurb of the UK version put me off, because it contained factually incorrect statements. But Burrough didn't write the blurb, so don't take the cover as an indication of the content.
There are a few silly errors in the text, but they would only annoy you if you knew better. For example the Soyuz isn't launched on a Proton rocket, and the cosmonauts don't wear Orlan suits for launch and entry - they wear the lightweight Sokol (Falcon) outfits.
More seriously, the geometry of the collision is wrong (he is using what was reported in the Media at the time) and even though he refers to the video from the Progress camera, he appears either not to have watched it or not have been able to 'see' what it portrayed.
What is crucial, is to appreciate that much of the drama is recreated. It is important to distinguish between the italicised transcript quotes and the 'reconstructed' conversations, and between fact (as far as can be reconstructed from video) and the picture painted in the book.
I have heard it slagged as anti-NASA. I disagree. I reckon it was probably fair in the sense that he captured the lousy working relationship between the Russians (controllers and cosmonauts), the Americans (those working on Shuttle-Mir and those ignoring it), and the thrown-together cooperation. To that extent, this was undoubtedly a valuable learning curve for ISS for all concerned.
I can't help feel that the fly in the ointment is always the US Congress with its obsession for 'overseeing', but no sense of responsibility for the consequences.
I think the book brought out the fact that the folks working in Russia and America on these space projects are not exactly singing in harmony.
I strongly recommend this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A fascinating tale which combines engineering, politics, and psychology in a fascinating brew. One knew that there was this rather sordid piece of bad housekeeping circling around overhead, but the accounts of almost everything - from the problems of daily living to the crises (try setting your own space-ship on fire) are gripping. A great story, brilliantly well told.
Format:Hardcover
I'm mainly a reader of Apollo stuff, but this book was a tremendous read. Very well researched, reads like a thriller in places with plenty of edge-of-the-seat stuff. Recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Not A Very Promising Start!!
I went out and bought a copy of Burrough's DRAGONFLY... Upon settling down to start reading it, I opened the book at the blurb on the inside cover...
"25 June 1997, 12.06. Read more
Published on 18 Dec 1998
riveting true story
Wow, I just read an excerpt about the fire aboard MIR and how Nasa reacted to it. You feel like you are actually onboard. Read more
Published on 16 Oct 1998
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