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Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight, by Margaret Lazarus Dean
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Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, a breathtaking elegy to the waning days of human spaceflight as we have known it
In the 1960s, humans took their first steps away from Earth, and for a time our possibilities in space seemed endless. But in a time of austerity and in the wake of high-profile disasters like Challenger, that dream has ended. In early 2011, Margaret Lazarus Dean traveled to Cape Canaveral for NASA's last three space shuttle launches in order to bear witness to the end of an era. With Dean as our guide to Florida's Space Coast and to the history of NASA, Leaving Orbit takes the measure of what American spaceflight has achieved while reckoning with its earlier witnesses, such as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Oriana Fallaci. Along the way, Dean meets NASA workers, astronauts, and space fans, gathering possible answers to the question: What does it mean that a spacefaring nation won't be going to space anymore?
- Sales Rank: #65134 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-19
- Released on: 2015-05-19
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.24" h x .95" w x 5.53" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
Review
“Wonderfully evocative. . . . Ms. Dean writes with the passion of a lifelong lover of space exploration and an ability to communicate, with tremendous kinetic power, the glory and danger of its missions.” ―Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Leaving Orbit is a long walk with a space enthusiast who has an eye and ear for detail, a gift for symbolism and an urgent need to understand the end of an era in American space exploration. It is a frank look back and a skeptical-but hopeful-look forward.” ―Houston Chronicle
“Sentimental and ferocious.” ―Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“One of those books you can't put down, don't want to finish, and won't soon forget.” ―Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Thoughtful and provocative. . . . Mesmerizing. . . . Dean deftly captures the thrill and discovery of American space exploration, as well as the disappointment and outrage she believes everyone should feel at its ending.” ―Publishers Weekly, starred review
“[Dean's] account of her visits, mixed with historical perspective on the space program, allows readers not only to visit Cape Canaveral while NASA was still sending Americans into space, but also to meet the workers and space fans for whom the sky was never the limit. With the countdown clock no longer ticking, Leaving Orbit offers a heartfelt eulogy for the dream and brief reality of American spaceflight.” ―Booklist
“In this eloquent farewell to NASA's space shuttle program, Margaret Lazarus Dean celebrates the extraordinary optimism that lifted humans off the Earth, dreaming of worlds far beyond. Her passion for cosmic travel is matched by her poetic vision of the past – once our future. If you lived it, you'll rejoice in the memories; if you didn't, you'll wish you'd been there. Either way, you'll beg for more.” ―Lynn Sherr, author of Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space
“What is it about spaceflight that activates our hearts and asks our brains to yearn? And what does it mean that we've now (mostly) stopped? Margaret Lazarus Dean wants to know--and so she goes to talk to Buzz Aldrin, to watch the last launch of the shuttle, to talk to astronauts whose names most of us no longer recognize. Dean digs deep and does not avert her gaze. She has the heart of a storyteller, the head of an essayist, and a transcendent enthusiasm for American spaceflight. I came away from Leaving Orbit with a renewed case of space brain, my heart once more in my throat.” ―Ander Monson
“The heroic tale of America's first space program--when patriotic cowboys in space suits rode Apollo rockets to the moon--has been told many times, most swaggeringly by those journalistic Homers, Mailer and Wolfe. The tale of America's second space program--less heroic than the first, more tragic, its most lasting images those of the space shuttle Challenger exploding across a blue Florida sky--has been waiting for a different sort of storyteller, an elegist. Here she is. Margaret Lazarus Dean has written the space shuttle the obituary it deserves, documenting the program's final countdown in prose that makes you feel by turns wistful and wonderstruck.” ―Donovan Hohn, author of Moby-Duck
“Margaret Lazarus Dean is that rarest of hybrids, the dearest of hyphenates. She brings to science such exquisite sentence making, to futurism the sound anchorage of the past, to space travel the tidings of personal journey. Journalist, essayist, memoirist and storyteller--her prized text shows Americans, each and every, how we came to be the ones we are. And where we're going. This is rocket science, reliable witness, replete with poetry.” ―Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking
About the Author
Margaret Lazarus Dean is the author of The Time It Takes to Fall. She is a recipient of fellowships from the NEA and the Tennessee Arts Commission and is an associate professor of English at the University of Tennessee. She lives in Knoxville.
Most helpful customer reviews
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
she admits that "[i]t's boring to describe one's interstate route
By KPH
I've decided to give up on this book at page 77. It's because it's not primarily a book about the last days of the Space Shuttle; it's primarily a book about Margaret Lazarus Dean. The book is weighed down with self-indulgent and trivial anecdotes about Dean that add nothing to the story. For instance, at page 75, she admits that "[i]t's boring to describe one's interstate route," and then nevertheless goes on to do just that for another two pages. We learn about I-75, its length, how long it takes to drive it to Florida, Dean's fear of driving long distances alone, how her husband was going to have to watch the kids while away on this trip, how her car felt while driving on I-75, that I-75 is a "generous and forgiving road" with "very little construction work", that Dean is going to listen to audiobooks during her drive, what the billboards say in Georgia, and that she ate at a Cracker Barrel.
I thought this was a book about the Shuttle? There are some interesting facts in the book, but not nearly enough to get me through passage after passage like the one above. A big disappointment.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
More Like a Travelogue Than a Pop-Science Book
By Book Shark
Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight by Margaret Lazarus Dean
“Leaving Orbit" is a personal quest to understand the end of NASA’s space shuttle program. Author, professor and space enthusiast, Margaret Lazarus Dean provides readers with a sentimental eulogy of sorts of the space program from a first-person perspective. This heartfelt 240-page book includes the following nine chapters: 1. The Beginnings of the Future: This Is Cape Canaveral, 2. What It Felt Like to Walk on the Moon, 3. Good-bye, Discovery, 4. A Brief History of the Future, 5. Good-bye, Endeavour, 6. A Brief History of Spacefarers, 7. Good-bye, Atlantis, 8. The End of the Future: Wheel Stop, and 9. The Future.
Positives:
1. An accessible, well-written and very descriptive book.
2. A fascinating topic. A look at the end of NASA’s space shuttle program.
3. Dean is an excellent storyteller. No shortage of words to describe her launch visits.
4. A good mix of personal anecdotes mixed with historical references.
5. Interesting facts provided. “Together the five orbiters Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour have flown a total of 133 successful missions, an unequaled accomplishment of engineering, management, and political savvy.”
6. Much of the story of this book revolves around the last three space shuttle missions. “The era of American spaceflight that started in 1961 when Alan Shepard became the first American to travel in space is about to come to an end, and few people seem to notice or care. Two more space shuttle missions are scheduled: STS-133 and STS-134. (STS stands for Space Transportation System, the original name for the space shuttle program from the seventies). A third mission, STS-135, will be added if NASA can get approval from Congress. This would mean one final launch for each of the three remaining space shuttle orbiters: Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis.”
7. Interesting spaceflight history. “American spaceflight did not begin at the Kennedy Space Center; nor did it begin at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station across the Banana River from here. It began in the early twentieth century when three men working independently in three different countries all developed the same ideas more or less simultaneously about how rockets could be used for space travel. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Russia, Hermann Oberth in Germany, and Robert Goddard in the United States all came up with an eerily similar concept for using liquid fuel to power rockets for human spaceflight.”
8. The origin of NASA. “A tiny government agency called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics had been in charge of overseeing the development of new airplane technology, including the plane that Chuck Yeager had flown to break the sound barrier in 1947, but their ambitious plans for sending pilots into space had always been dismissed as too expensive, too dangerous, and ultimately pointless. After Sputnik, President Eisenhower took a new interest in the activities of NACA and turned it into NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, with an infusion of funding. NASA was meant to beat the Soviets at their own game. The space race was on, and it seemed that the Soviets already might have won it.”
9. The three causes behind Kennedy’s decision to land on the moon.
10. An interesting look at the Vehicle Assembly Building.
11. Loved the story of Omar Izquierdo and the important role he played throughput this book and his career at the Kennedy Space Center.
12. How space history is divided. “Space historians divide the fifty-year period of American spaceflight into two eras: the “heroic era,” which includes the Mercury project to put the first Americans into space, the Gemini project to expand NASA’s abilities and test techniques for getting to the moon, and the Apollo project, which achieved the moon landings.”
13. Michal Collins list of the eleven points in Apollo 11 flight plan.
14. The fascinating life of Buzz Aldrin. “He tells stories about getting to the moon and back, about the world tour he, Neil, and Mike took upon their return, about the travel reimbursement form he received from NASA that detailed his work-related travel: Houston to Cape Canaveral; Cape Canaveral to Moon; Moon to Cape Canaveral; Cape Canaveral to Houston. His total reimbursement for the trip was thirty-three dollars.”
15. Individual chapters for the final space-shuttle missions of Discovery, Endeavor and Atlantis.
16. The politics of flying. “There are four warring interests in spaceflight: ambitiousness of vision, urgency of timetable, reduction of cost, and safety to astronauts. These can never be entirely reconciled. In the sixties, urgency and ambitiousness were the driving factors, and because this was understood and accepted, the massive cost and risk were accepted as well. We now seem to be at a moment when reduction of cost is paramount, with safety coming in a very close second. This being the case, we should not be surprised that ambitiousness and urgency have had to be set aside altogether. But it’s ludicrous to claim, as I often hear people do, that “NASA has lost its vision.” NASA has lost support, not vision.”
17. Dean touches the topic of women pilots. “The women were experienced pilots. Many of them had broken records; some had broken the sound barrier. Their efforts to get NASA to recognize them as potential astronaut candidates were met with evasion. When the women managed to gain access to the same rigorous physical and psychological testing the Mercury Seven had gone through at the Lovelace Clinic, thirteen of them passed. Some of the women beat records set by the men. By doing so, these thirteen women managed to create enough pressure that a congressional hearing was held to address the question of women joining the astronaut corps.”
18. The role of probes. “Atlantis was the first orbiter to launch an interplanetary probe, Magellan, which traveled to Venus. On its next flight, Atlantis launched the Galileo probe to Jupiter. Both probes’ missions were considered enormous successes, and both have greatly expanded our knowledge of the solar system.”
19. A lot of interesting behind the scenes events.
20. The future of spaceflight is discussed.
21. Formal bibliography and timeline of American spaceflight provided.
Negatives:
1. My biggest complaint about this book is the lack of scientific/engineering rigor. I understand that Ms. Dean’s background is in anthropology and English but collaboration with a science-minded educator would have provided more value.
2. Lack of visual material. The author does a wonderful job of narrating her story but where are some of the many photos she took? Links? Copyright issues?
3. Lack of supplemental material. No space shuttle tables that would make it easy for the reader to understand the differences between the five space shuttle orbiters.
4. Descriptive to a fault. More precisely, describing things that likely are of no interest to the public.
5. The danger of making oneself an important element of the story is that one’s traits (good and bad) come to light. A bit self-indulgent and on the whiny side.
6. For the record, I’m very liberal on social issues and felt Ms. Dean could have done a much better job on the subtopic of feminist issues. She has valid observations but I also felt that she didn’t dig deep enough. People do change over time and a person who may have had some reservations about women in space may change over time to realize how wrong that notion was.
7. Too many references to Norman Mailer.
In summary, this was an average book as far as I am concerned. It’s a fascinating topic in the hands of a gifted writer who loves the wonders of space exploration and has a keen eye for detail but it also lacks scientific meat and comes across more as a travelogue than a sound popular science book. The writing is engaging and very descriptive but the science was too basic and the lack of visual materials held this otherwise interesting book back. If you are a space enthusiast by all means read this book with reservations noted.
Further recommendations: “Of a Fire on the Moon” by Norma Mailer, “The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough, “The Right Stuff” by Tom Wolfe, “Moon Shot” by Alan Shepherd, “Thirteen: The Apollo Flight that Failed” by Henry S. Cooper, “First Man” by James R. Hansen, and “Apollo Expeditions to the Moon” by NASA’s Moon Landing Program.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Awful
By Al Dejoseph
This is the worst book about the USA space program I've ever read. The author repeats herself constantly. There is no story here.
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