| MURDER ON PAD 34 Erik Bergaust New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1968 |
Rating: 3.0 Fair |
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| LibCong 68-12096 | 253pp. | HC/BWI | $5.95 | |
| Page 48: | "The second dog-bearing Sputnik triggered a flood of criticism against the Eisenhower administration for its complacency in the space age." |
| Missing comma: S/B "The second, dog-bearing Sputnik". Without it, this says that both Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 contained a dog. |
| Page 56: | "A project by the name of Orbiter got underway..." |
| S/B "under way". |
| Page 58: | "He finally called in his science advisor, Dr. Julian R. Killian." |
| S/B "James". |
| Page 82: | "The flight of Gemini 5 on August 21 ... came to an abrupt end after eight days with a rapid drop in the supercold storage tanks supplying the spacecraft's fuel cells." |
| I assume Bergaust means "a rapid drop in pressure"; he should specify that. |
| Pages 88-89: | "The problem of weight—and weight saving—is one of the most vital aspects of space flight, and in the Apollo program it has become crucial. Since the Apollo approach uses no rescue ship, and since the vehicle is incapable of returning to earth in aircraft fashion, NASA has been forced to install an almost unbelievable amount of redundant backup equipment.1 Under its design philosophy, there must be at least one backup system for each important system. Thus, the Apollo command module contains some two million intricate parts2 and the whole vehicle with booster rockets and all other sections weighs more than a Navy destroyer." |
| This is one of those "Hoo boy, where do I start?" paragraphs. It talks about backups like they are bad things, and fails to mention that most of the rocket's weight is fuel and structure. |
| Page 91: | "Attached to the upper stage is a rocket engine to propel that stage from the moon's surface to the awaiting command and service module in lunar orbit." |
| S/B "waiting". |
| Page 94: | "Timing the LEM launch to coincide with the Apollo module, the LEM will meet it 83 miles high for rendezvous and docking." |
| S/B "Apollo command and service module". |
| Page 105: | "They were rejected, and reportedly Hyatt, in disgust, left NASA." |
| Sloppy reporting as well as poor writing. Was it Hyatt's disgust that was reported to the author, or the fact that he left NASA? Why did Bergaust not contact the man to get his own story? |
| Page 170: | "He found that 20 were potentially lethal, including highly explosive hydrogen given off by water used in cooling sytsems ..." |
| S/B "systems". |
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