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Gus Grissom: The Lost Astronaut (Indiana Biography Series) Posters
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List Price: $19.95Amazon.com's Price: $14.96 You Save: $4.99 (25%)Prices subject to change.
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.450092
EAN: 9780871951762
ISBN: 0871951762
Label: Indiana Historical Society
Manufacturer: Indiana Historical Society
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 393
Publication Date: 2004-09
Publisher: Indiana Historical Society
Sales Rank: 472581
Studio: Indiana Historical Society
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In the late 1950s the Soviet Union shocked the world by placing a small satellite—Sputnik—in orbit around the earth. Treated as a technological Pearl Harbor in the United States, the Russian achievement prompted the federal government to create a civilian organization, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to manage the American space program. By April 1959, NASA had selected seven military test pilots to serve as the country’s first astronauts in the race with the Soviets to see who could put the first human in space. One of the seven Americans picked for this ambitious effort came from the small southern Indiana community of Mitchell. Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom would go on to become the first man to fly in space twice and to give his life in NASA’s attempt to meet President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely home by the end of the 1960s.
In this second volume in the Indiana Historical Society Press’s Indiana Biography Series, Hoosier historian and writer Ray E. Boomhower explores Grissom’s life, from his days as a child playing in the forests of nearby Spring Mill State Park to his service as a combat pilot flying missions against Communist opponents in the skies over Korea. He also delves into the process by which NASA selected its original seven Mercury astronauts, the jostling for position to be the first American in space, and Grissom’s near-fatal Liberty Bell 7 flight that haunted his subsequent space career.
After almost drowning when the hatch malfunctioned on his Mercury flight, Grissom resurrected his reputation through determination and his careful work with the space agency’s Gemini program. The Hoosier astronaut made such a mark on the program that fellow astronauts nicknamed the Gemini spacecraft the Gusmobile. Grissom continued to be the astronaut NASA turned to when testing new spacecraft for the Apollo moon program. On January 27, 1967, Grissom, along with crew members Ed White and Roger Chaffee, died when a fire swept through their Apollo command module during a supposedly safe test on the ground at Cape Kennedy’s Launch Complex 34. The astronaut’s story continues after his death, however, most recently with the discovery and raising of the Liberty Bell 7 from its resting place on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I ordered this book for my father for his birthday and he really liked it.
The family is waiting in line to read the book when he is done.
Rating: -
The Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom saga was long overdue for a retelling. For too many years the only thing resembling a biography was the dreadful "Starfall," a superficial patchwork. This work comes from the Indiana Historical Society Press, and while not exhaustive, it is a vast improvement over Grissom's first biography and puts a respectable current biography in schools and libraries.
I have to remind myself over and over that it is nearly fifty years ago since Grissom and six other career ... Read More
Rating: -
I hope all of those who saw "The Right Stuff" and based their opinions of Gus Grissom on that movie/book, read THIS one. Grissom was the best pilot (and I am a huge Chuck Yeager fan) and an all around good guy. I was so glad when the Liberty Bell was brought to the surface and people finally knew what this book tells the reader, and those of us who had faith in Gus all along already knew. He did NOTHING WRONG when his spacecraft sank. Having seen the Apollo Launch pad where Grissom, White and Chafee died, ... Read More
Rating:  -
There's no doubt that Gus Grissom was an American Hero. There's no doubt that he was often maligned -- both during his life and even after his tragic death -- most notably by Tom Wolfe's depiction of Grissom in "The Right Stuff". There is also no doubt, though, that Grissom is a favorite son of Indiana (righfully so). But given that this biography is part of the "Indiana Biography Series", I believe it may go too far in attempting to vindicate Grissom and give him the credit he deserves. While the book ... Read More
Rating: -
Virgil "Gus" Grissom is most commonly remembered by casual "space historians", as the only Mercury Astronaut to lose his spacecraft and for his death along with Robert Chafee and Edward White in the Apollo 1 fire. Most of these same historians think of him as a bit of a screwup as well, who may have been responsible for the loss of Friendship 7, when he in a panicked state blew the hatch while most of the spacecraft was still submerged, but for the loss of Apollo 1 as well due his insistence on not using explosive ... Read More
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