Interview series with the authors of “Into that Silent Sea,” French and Burgess, Part eight

Today in Space History (TISH) has been granted an exclusive opportunity to interview authors Francis French and Colin Burgess based on their book “Into That Silent Sea,” which TISH highly recommends for reading. This is part eight.

Archives for the complete interview series | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen

What is one of the biggest misconceptions you think the general public might have of spacefarers now that you’ve written the book?

FF: Perhaps because I grew up in England , and Colin is from Australia , it seems that we had a different take on these stories before we wrote them than many spaceflight followers. Neither of us had a national manned space program, so all space programs were foreign to us, and equally fascinating. It’s something I’m coming to learn when reading reviews of the book and hearing from colleagues who have read it. It seems that many in the US know the basic story of the astronauts reasonably well, but had no real idea about the cosmonauts. They were always the mysterious ‘other’ that the US was racing against, rather than people serving their own country in their own ways. It’s been so pleasing to hear the very positive reactions of many Americans to the book – even some American astronauts – as they learn the other half of the story.

Additionally, stories of spacefarers have frequently been told in the past as part of some author-driven agenda. They have been painted as Cold War heroes, as component parts of a huge engineering achievement, as ambassadors for the outward urge of humankind, as devil-may-care danger-lovers… all depending on the whims of the author. Some great books resulted – but we didn’t have an agenda like that. We simply wanted to answer the questions – who were these people, what were they like, and what did they do?

In the past, writers have also told the Soviet stories as pieces of their own detective puzzles – about how they personally uncovered new, formerly-secret information. It’s makes for fascinating reading, but we felt it was time to go beyond that and simply tell the stories straight, rather than describe how we did the research. In the opening of the book, we spend a little time explaining what the book is not about, and then get on with what it is about – a group of people, very diverse backgrounds, very different from each other, whose only common link is one day they found themselves sitting on top of a rocket, about to launch into space.

CB: The first American astronauts were without any doubt mythologised in the popular media. While the Russians were accused (and rightly so) of using greatly exaggerated propaganda techniques in telling and even manipulating the biographies of their cosmonauts, so too the astronauts were presented to the American public as God-fearing, church-going, scandal-free, exercise-loving and devoted family men, and carefully staged photographs were the order of the day, particularly in the powerful, widely-read “Life” magazine. While we now know that the ideals presented were in reality sometimes far from the truth, it is often the way in which people who lived through that era still perceive these people. Curiously enough I have learned much about the realities of their lives, and yet I still carry that admiration for them from my own childhood, when “Life” magazine articles – purportedly written by them – were among my most prized possessions.

I often give talks on human spaceflight history at schools, but it’s hard to rally that same enthusiasm in younger students. They are used to seeing basically the same shuttles lift off, the same kinds of people waving at them from orbit, and the same shuttles landing. In my teens I was wholly engrossed in the Space Race, and would know true excitement whenever I saw a banner headline at a newspaper stand announcing the latest Soviet space spectacular. It might be a tough and probably surprising thing to admit, but if I was growing up in this present era I would see nothing in human space flight that might attract my interest in the same way as the potent dramas surrounding the Mercury flight of John Glenn back in ’62. It will soon be five years since we lost shuttle Columbia , and many younger school students do not even recall that event in their lives, let alone know anything about the Challenger tragedy back in 1986.

December 17, 1958 – NASA names first manned space program Project Mercury

NASA’s first human spaceflight program was called Project Mercury. It came into existence November 26, 1958 but was not named Project Mercury until December 17, 1958. It formally ended in 1963 though its last mission took place in November 1961. The goal of Project Mercury was to put a man into orbit above the Earth. The Mercury-Atlas 6 flight on February 20, 1962 was the first Mercury flight to achieve this goal. NASA selected seven astronauts to fly the Mercury missions. They were known as the Mercury 7. Max Faget was the leading Mercury engineer.

In all, the Mercury Project succeeded in carrying two men on sub-orbital flights and four on orbital missions. During the program NASA also completed 34 orbits around the Earth, tracking nearly 54 total orbital hours.

See the entries related to the Mercury Program.

Mercury Control – Cape Canaveral, Florida. (NASA)

December 17, 1957 – first launch of the Atlas rocket by U.S.

Designed in the late 1950s, the Atlas rocket is the name of a family of U.S. space launch vehicles. The Atlas is a liquid-fuel rocket with three multi-stage engines. During ascent, Atlas would jettison two of its three engines. The Atlas V rocket is currently used by the U.S.  The first successful test-launch of an Atlas rocket took place December 17, 1957.

Atlas missile launch from Cape Canaveral in 1957

Read more about the Atlas rocket in Wikipedia

Mars series on Today in Space History

What is the lure of the Red planet? - Part One (12/18)

Mars as an early space program target? - Part Two (12/21)

Successful U.S. Mars mission (1964 - 1975)? - Part Three (12/23)

Successful U.S. Mars mission (1996 - 2007)? - Part Four (12/25)

The Viking Program and Mars Exploration? – Part Five (12/27)

Robotic Missions to Mars (1960 – 2007)? - Part Six (12/29)

Interview series with the authors of “Into that Silent Sea,” French and Burgess, Part seven

Today in Space History (TISH) has been granted an exclusive opportunity to interview authors Francis French and Colin Burgess based on their book “Into That Silent Sea,” which TISH highly recommends for reading. This is part seven.

Archives for the complete interview series | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen

What if anything did you have to cut out of the book that you would have liked to have included?

FF: We were fortunate to have a very supportive publisher, who wanted these stories to be told. When it became evident that our first draft would have resulted in a 700-page book, they gave us the time and support to make two, shorter books out of the material, rather than making enormous cuts. The next book, “In the Shadow of the Moon,” continues the story up until the first manned moon landing, and can be read as a standalone book or as a “Part Two.”

One advantage of two authors is that you constantly check each others’ work, paring down where necessary, cutting stories that interrupt the flow. There were so many great stories we came across in our research, but we also knew we needed to keep the book lively and engaging, and never linger too long in one place. We got very used to being brutally honest with each other, never letting personal feelings get in the way of writing a better book. So by the time we presented our manuscript, it seemed the publisher found very little to change and cut. We had great editors who did some impressive revisions to sharpen the text, but we never lost any of the good stories in the book during that process.

CB: I fully agree with Francis on this. I can’t bring to mind any story or episode that had to be excluded, although as usual when you are conducting interviews and deep research you will be told many things in confidence that out of respect will never make it into the book. And that one word – respect – is what I think stood us in good stead in putting this book together (as well as a past reputation for openness and honesty with these people, I believe). When folks know they can tell you things in confidence and that trust is never compromised, then other stories will be revealed that they know they can entrust to you, in the full knowledge that they will appear in print for the first time. And of course we would always allow the subject or subjects of a chapter to read through our drafts and make any corrections they desired. That’s why there are so many new, sometimes deeply personal stories revealed in our books – and others that will never go beyond us.

December 16, 1917 – Science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke is born

British science-fiction novelist Sir Arthur C. Clarke was born today, December 16, 1917. He was also an inventor and futurist and is most famous for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Quote:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
- Arthur C. Clarke, cited in Into that Silent Sea (p. 171).

Antiquarian books on eBay by “Arthur C. Clarke“

December 16, 1965 – Pioneer 6 launches first in a series of solar probes

“Pioneer 6 was the first in a series of solar-orbiting, spin-stabilized, solar-cell and battery-powered satellites designed to obtain measurements on a continuing basis of interplanetary phenomena from widely separated points in space. Its experiments studied the positive ions and electrons in the solar wind, the interplanetary electron density (radio propagation experiment), solar and galactic cosmic rays, and the interplanetary magnetic field.”

- Text and image credit: NASA

December 15, 1923 – Oberth publishes major work

Hermann Julius Oberth (June 25, 1894 – December 28, 1989) self-publishes Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (“By Rocket into Planetary Space”) after its rejection as a doctoral thesis.

Wikipedia says:

. . .  an Austro-Hungarian-born, German and Romanian physicist, and, along with the Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the American Robert Goddard, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics. The three were never active collaborators: instead, their parallel achievements occurred independently of one another.

December 15, 1965 – Gemini 6A launches into orbit to rendevouz with Gemini VII

Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. (March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts chosen for the Project Mercury, America’s first effort to put men in space. He was the only man to fly in all of America’s first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo). He flew on Mercury 8, Gemini 6A and Apollo 7.

Wikipedia says:

“On December 15, 1965, Schirra flew into space a second time in Gemini 6A with Tom Stafford, rendezvousing with astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell, Jr. in Gemini 7. This was the first rendezvous of two manned spacecraft in earth orbit. The two vehicles, however, were not capable of actually docking. Gemini 6 landed in the Atlantic Ocean the next day, while Gemini 7 continued on to a record-setting 14-day mission.

While on the Gemini mission, Schirra attracted notoriety for playing “Jingle Bells” on a four-hole Hohner harmonica he had smuggled on board, and a “Wally Schirra” commemorative model was later produced.

Image credit: NASA

Interview series with the authors of “Into that Silent Sea,” French and Burgess, Part six

Today in Space History (TISH) has been granted an exclusive opportunity to interview authors Francis French and Colin Burgess based on their book “Into That Silent Sea,” which TISH highly recommends for reading. This is part six.

Archives for the complete interview series | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen

When you first thought of the book concept, did the chapter subjects come easy at first or did the subjects that made it in to the book evolve over time? How did that part of the process go?

FF: The idea was to explore the lives of each person who flew in space, in order of flight, whatever nation they belonged to. So the chapter order and contents were driven by that history. However, we were very aware that some stories were extremely well-known – such as John Glenn’s – and others far less so. We found that for the frequently-told stories it was far more interesting to tell them using the recollections of others who were close to events – the astronauts’ nurse, the spacecraft recovery teams, the launch crew, for example – which gave fresh new angles. We tried to never be lazy and simply repeat often-told stories. Where possible, we told well-known stories in new, fresh ways, and we also delved deeply into the lesser-known stories. We sometimes struck off in new directions – such as exploring the lives of women in both America and the Soviet Union who had hoped to fly in space – but always with an eye on the main story – those who flew.

Another angle we took is to try and stay in the background as much as possible and let the participants do the talking; we include far more direct quotations than most history books. Personally, I find books where the author frequently inserts themselves into the story a little annoying: we tried to stay out of the way when possible and let those who were there do the talking. I hope it made for a much fresher, more immediate reading experience.

CB: We each looked at the subject or subjects of the chapters we had taken on and tried to find the most interesting way to tackle the storyline, capturing their innate personality and any difficulties or even shortcomings they might have had to work through. We thought the juxtaposition of the tales of the two Wallys (Wally Schirra and Wally Funk) was a natural for one chapter. They both went through the medical testing given to astronaut candidates at that time, and while one succeeded the other has yet to achieve her dreams of space flight. I can tell you that we approached both of these people with a little trepidation, not knowing if they would find the whole idea ridiculous or not. Fortunately they didn’t, and in my opinion it’s certainly a highlight chapter in the book.

John Glenn’s story is one of the most-told and familiar of all the spacefarers. My initial thought was to relate his story through the recollections of his and Annie’s children, but then it was decided to tackle a whole new approach and cover his flight more through the eyes and words of his backup pilot, Scott Carpenter – more or less the “invisible man” of that historic flight. And then of course we moved onto Carpenter’s own flight, about which many myths have evolved that needed to be meticulously examined and, for the most part, banished.