RIDING ROCKETS

Reviewed 5/29/2012

Riding Rockets, by Mike Mullane
RIDING ROCKETS
The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut
Mike Mullane
New York: Scribner, 2006

Rating:

5.0

High

ISBN-13 978-0-7432-7682-5
ISBN-10 0-7432-7682-5 368pp. HC/BWI $26.00

Errata

Page 32: "These were just steel tubes filled with a propellant of ammonium perclorate and aluminum powder."
  Spelling: S/B "perchlorate".
Page 34: "It would be more than just the unknowns of a new spacecraft that TFNGs would face."
  Missing word: S/B "that the TFNGs".
Page 36: "The air force also told me what to wear."
  Capitalization: S/B "Air Force".
Page 66: "Originally designed in the late '50s by the USAF to serve as an advanced training aircraft, NASA had acquired a squadron of them as proficiency trainers for the astronauts."
  Dangling participle: S/B two sentences: "The T-38 was originally designed in the late '50s by the USAF to serve as an advanced training aircraft. NASA had acquired a squadron of them as proficiency trainers for the astronauts."
Page 69: "In my air force career there had been numerous incidents..."
  Capitalization: S/B "Air Force".
Page 69: "In fact, it happened so often worldwide the air force ultimately banned the practice..."
  Capitalization: S/B "Air Force".
Page 71: "Some of them were going to be affected, of that, I was sure."
  Punctuation: S/B "of that I was sure".
Page 71: "I had been [affected] in my early air force flying career."
  Capitalization: S/B "Air Force".
Page 105: Footnote: "STS-51L, the fated Challenger flight, was supposed to be the last flight of 1985, but flew as the second mission of 1986."
  Missing wod: S/B "ill-fated".
Page 174: "Other than the breath of the cabin fans and the white-noise hiss of the UHF radio, the cockpit was midnight still."
  Why was the squelch open? Perhaps to provide white noise as a soporific.
Page 184: "In sunset and sunrise terminators, thunderstorms cast hundreds of mile-long shadows."
  hyphenation: S/B "thunderstorms cast hundreds-of-miles-long shadows". (Better yet: "thunderstorms cast shadows hundreds of miles long.")
Page 207: "...but he would still be flying the shuttle as a non-mission essential passenger for PR purposes."
  Hyphenation: S/B "non-mission-essential passenger".
Page 228: "President Reagan ordered the formation of the Roger's Commission to take over the investigation."
  Punctuation: S/B "Rogers Commission". (This mistake is repeated twice more.)
Page 247: "As much as I disliked Young for his attempts to torpedo my astronaut career, the position he took on some issues were the correct ones."
  Number error: S/B "positions".
Page 282: "There was precedence for that."
  Spelling: S/B "precedent".
Page 312: "I knew Dave was as scared as I was. While jogging with him, he had quoted a Scripture passage..."
  Person: S/B "me".
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