Freedom 7: The NASA Mission Reports (Apogee Books Space Series)

Rating:
Summary: Freedom 7
Review: After a good, short introduction to set the scene, Godwin continues his edited sequence of collected material from NASA archives by covering the flight of Freedom 7, the first US suborbital space flight of Mercury 1, the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission, which took place in May 1961. The contents include the team press conference and news release, drawings and technical diagrams pertaining to the flight, the postflight press conference and astronaut debriefing, and a flight transcript. Covered are the flight plan, the Mercury spacecraft systems, pre- and post-flight medical exam results, bioinstrumentation, the physiological responses of the astronauts, pilot training and preflight preparation, in-flight pilot performance, and the pilot's flight report. There are eight pages of color photographs, several figures and diagrams, some barely readable, and a CD-ROM that contains video documentation of the flight. Recommended as part of a complete series by editor Godwin dealing with the history of NASA's manned space flight program. General readers; lower- and upper-division undergraduates; professionals; two-year technical program students.

Rating:
Summary: Another Great Collection of NASA Documents and Photographs
Review: Once again, Robert Godwin and Apogee Books have compiled a great set of NASA documents about the early era of manned space exploration. This time, as the title indicates, he has chosen Freedom 7. This mission was the first NASA manned mission and made Alan Shepard the first American into space.

This book contains many interesting documents, which I have previously read only in parts. It contains the invitation and requirements needed apply for an astronaut position, a transcription of the press conference for the first introduction of the Original Mercury Seven astronauts, a pre-flight press release, and four post-flight reports. I found all of these documents extremely interesting.

From the transcript of the introduction of the Original Mercury Seven astronauts, it was easy to see who would be the eventual leaders from this first group of astronauts: Glenn and Shepard with Slayton and Schirra next. These two men did the most talking and embellished all their answers. As usual, I found the post-flight debriefing the most interesting section of the book. Here, Alan Shepard describes his experiences during his missions and is asked many simple questions which almost seem ridiculous forty years later. For example, "Could you swallow?" or "Could you hear?" Readers should, however, not be discouraged in reading this section, since there are many photographs and drawings to aid the reader.

There is also a section in the book titled "Results of the First United States Manned Suborbital Space Flight" which is fairly technical, especially the medical portions. This part of the book provides a technical description of the flight, how various spacecraft systems worked, a great deal of information on the astronaut's performance and numerous medical tests and results. All in all, an extremely interesting and well-written section.

Finally, there is a CD that contains, a NASA movie about the Freedom 7 mission, some footage taken during the mission, three press conferences (it's amazing how young everyone looks) and the NASA publication "This New Ocean" (in pdf format). Again, some more great stuff.

Some general information that might be useful.

1) These reports are just scanned-in documents from previously released NASA press kits, etc., In order to preserve the spirit of the original reports, all typographical and grammatical errors have NOT been fixed.

2) Proceeds from the book goes to "The Watch" an asteroid impact research project of the Space Frontier Foundation. In other words, Apogee Books is making very little off the sale of US government produced books.

Rating:
Summary: Early Days
Review: This is the 14th book in the series but it relies on some of the earliest NASA material. Because of this, some of the collected documents are not as polished as those from the Apollo years. The book is lighter on technical descriptions of the spacecraft, the booster, launch complex, etc. than previous books in the series. It does contain the transcript of the infamous news conference where the 7 astronauts were introduced. The entire postflight mission report is also provided, as well as the "Help Wanted" astronaut job description. The CD-Rom contains "This New Ocean", NASA's history of the Mercury project. Overall a worthwile purchase.