Books that make you who you are

Recently, I bought two books by Herbert A. Hutchinson who was a Chief System Engineer USAF LWF Program Office. The books are

Inside History of the USAF Lightweight Fighters, 1900 to 1975

As the book’s title says its about the history of fighters development in US Airforce. But what makes this book stand out of the likes is its emphases on engineering aspects of the fighter planes. Herbert Hutchinson brings unique perspective being an aerospace engineer.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon Multinational Weapon System, 1972 to 2019

This second book has some overlapping material with the book above. And it is focused mostly on nitty gritty details of the transition from YF-16 prototype to full blown F-16 fighter as it’s known today. By the way F-16 is the most numerous 4th generation fighter in the world.

Why these books?

As I wrote in a number of post previously here, here and here, the most interesting books about engineering topics, such as aviation, space, physics or mathematics are those that are written by engineers, physicist and mathematicians who can explain the subject from personal point of view. In the case of Herbert Hutchinson books he provides lots of valuable advice as an experienced system engineer and manager to fresh engineers. I find this advice crucial because you do not find this knowledge and experience transfer that often when you join a company as junior engineer.

As such these books resemble to me

• Rockets and People by Boris Chertok (chief control engineer of the soviet space program)
• The Power to Fly: An Engineer’s Life by Brian H Rowe who went from being mechanical engineer at General Electric to being the president of GE Aviation
• 747: Creating the World’s First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation by Joe Sutter who was chief engineer responsible for what we know now as Boeing – 747 and its power hose Boeing – 747-8 cargo jet
• Left Brains for the Right Stuff: Computers, Space, and History by Hugh Blair-Smith who was a staff engineer at Draper Lab and created and updated the assembler program YUL, also a version control system and manufacturing aid, as the Apollo Guidance Computer – AGC developed.
• Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto by Alan Stern, David Grinspoon this book was written by Alan Stern who is the Principal Investigator of the New Horizons spacecraft that visited Pluto for the first time ever.

Engineering is the core human activity

I hope you got what I had in mind. Well, if you like these topics as I do, then I guess you may find the books above more than interesting.

This post continues the series of posts describing books I read end-to-end and classified in accordance with some criteria. This time we are talking about books on space and space exploration. You may also check related posts: this, this, this, and this, I wrote previously.

• Books on Space and Space Exploration
  • Apollo program
    • Flight Directors
      • Flight: My Life in Mission Control by Christopher Kraft. This book is autobiography by Chris Kraft starting from his positions at NACA and ending being flight director on STS (aka Space Shuttle). It’s an easy ready since Chris Craft was capable of describing his life at NASA very vividly.
      • Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz. Gene Kranz was the Flight Director on Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 missions and was also depicted in the Apollo 13 movie.
    • Flight Controllers
      • Go, Flight!: The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control, 1965–1992 by Rick Houston, Milt Heflin, et al.  This book was a tedious one to read so I cannot recommend it.
    • Programmers aka Software Developers
      • Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles. Don Eyles was responsible for programming Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), specifically, the Lunar Landing Part of it.
      • Left Brains for the Right Stuff: Computers, Space, and History by Hugh Blair-Smith. Hugh Blair-smith designed and implemented assembler for AGC and did other interesting stuff at MIT Instrumentation Lab.
    • Engineers
      • Safely to Earth: The Men and Women Who Brought the Astronauts Home by Jack Clemons. An interesting read by an engineer who was responsible for the algorithm of space capsule landing after returning from space.
    • Apollo Program by Scientists and engineers not affiliated with Apollo program
      • Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight by David A. Mindell. A very interesting book that talks about Human-Machine Interface applicable to Apollo program.
      • The Apollo Chronicles: Engineering America’s First Moon Missions by Brandon R. Brown. This book was written by the son of one of the engineers from Apollo Program. The book is about a ‘regular’ Apollo program engineer, one out of 400,000.
    • Astronauts
      • Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race by David Scott and Alexei Leonov. David Scott flew with Neil Armstrong on Gemini 8 and as a commander on Apollo 15.
      • Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys by Michael Collins. Michael Collins flew on Gemini 10 and was a Command Module Pilot on Apollo 11 that landed on the Moon for the first time.
      • The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America’s Race in Space by Eugene Cernan. Gene Cernan flew on Gemini 9A, Apollo 10, and landing on the Moon with Harrison Schmitt during Apollo 17, the last mission to the Moon in 1972.
    • Apollo program by Historians and journalists
      • Historians
        • A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin. This is a very detailed and comprehensive description of Apollo missions.
      • Journalists
        • Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon by Jeffrey Kluger. This book was co-written with Jim Lovell who flew on Gemini 7 and Gemini 12, Apollo 8, the first mission to the Moon, and Apollo13.
        • Apollo 13 by Jeffrey Kluge. This book was too co-written with Jim Lovell and as you might have guessed it’s about the most successful failure in NASA history.
  • Soviet Space Program
    • Rockets and People, Volumes 1,2,3,4 by Boris Chertok. This is a four volumes history of Soviet Space Program written by on of the Chief Engineers in the team of Chief Designer Sergei Korolev. These volumes are available for free courtesy of NASA.
  • General Space Exploration
    • Outer Planets and Deep Space Exploration
      • The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission by Jim Bell. An interesting book about design, development and usage of Voyager 1 and 2 space craft, which are somewhere in the interstellar space right now.
    • Inner Planets Exploration
      • The Right Kind Of Crazy by Adam Steltzner. This book is about how Adam Steltzner went from a musician to a mechanical engineer, later to become chief engineer of Curiosity and Perseverance Mars Rovers.
    • Low Earth Orbit and the Moon
      • An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield. This book is a memoir by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. He’s best known for his cover of the David Bowes’ Space Oddity song. The song was recorded on board of the International Space Station (ISS).
      • Disaster Strikes!: The Most Dangerous Space Missions of All Time by Jeffrey Kluger. This book is about space missions that were not that successful to say the least.

As I mentioned previously, this post is about organizing the books I read about aviation in a particular structure that could be useful to other readers. This post is based partially on the post I wrote about the origins of Stealth technology and the post on aviation related books in general. In short, my classification is about civil and military aviation with some sub-categories inside each branch of aviation.

Aviation

• Civil Aviation
  • Biographies of plane engineers
    • 747 by Joe Sutter. This book could be of interest to people who not only want to learn about the 747, but also want to know who developed it, why and how it happened. Joe Sutter produced an interesting nerative that is fun to read.
  • Biographies of jet engine engineers
    • The Power to Fly: An Engineer’s Life by Brian H. Rowe. This book provides you with an information of how jet engines were developed in General Electric Engines and also provides you with author’s personal advice on engineering and management.
    • Herman the German: Just Lucky I Guess by Gerhard Neumann. While I read the book by Brian H. Rowe he mentioned that his boss at GE Aviation Engines was Gerhard Neumann who was quite a personality. I was curious so I bought this book. It was very adventurous reading to say the least. It seems like Gerhard Neumann had the most adventurous life of any person on earth. Surely, more adventurous, than Indiana Jones could ever dream of.
• Military Aviation
  • Jet Fighter Planes
    • Hornet: The inside Story of The F/A-18 by Orr Kelly. This books provides many details of how F/A-18 was conceived, designed and developed. I was very impressed with the book, taking into consideration, that at first I thought about F/A-18 as an ugly plane.
  • Biographies of military jet planes engineers
    • Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Kelly Johnson. Well, I guess there is no need to introduce who Kelly Johnson was. And if there is a need to do this, then he’s the father of Skunk Works which brought you U-2, A-12, SR-71 and other Area 51 planes.
    • Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed by Ben Rich. This book is very exciting and it talks about F-117 design and development also touching on SR-71 and other planes developed by Skunk Works. Ben Rich started as a thermodynamics specialist of SR-71 in Kelly Johnson team, later to succeed him as Skunk Works director. By the way, his son Michael D. Rich is the CEO of RAND corporation.
  • Low Observable Technology aka Stealth
    • Books for general audience
      • Stealth: The Secret Contest to Invent Invisible Aircraft by Peter Westwick. This books talks about the rationale for developing stealth aircraft, how stealth technology was originated and the planes where this technology was applied to.
    • Technical books
      • Have Blue and the F-117A: Evolution of the Stealth Fighter by Albertt C. Piccirillo and David C. Aronstein. This book is an official account of F-117 procurement and manufacturing with some details on its design and development. It suits more program management inclined readers.
      • Radar Cross Section (Radar, Sonar and Navigation) by Eugene F. Knott, John F. Schaeffer, Michael T. Tulley. This is a textbook on radar applied to low observable technology.
  • Stealth Planes books
    • Area 51 – Black Jets: A History of the Aircraft Developed at Groom Lake, America’s Secret Aviation Base by Bill Yenne. This book is more about the Groom Lake which known to general public as Area 51 and the planes that called it home. Among them were a number of known and yet unknown stealth aircraft.
    • Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter by Paul F. Crickmore. This book is about F-117 in particular, including its specification, usage and more.
    • B-2: The Spirit of Innovation by Rebecca Grant. This books was written on behalf of Northrop Grumman and provides some interesting details of how B-2 was developed to be the first ever stealth bomber of the second generation.

There are lots of books on aviation that are written by historians or journalists. The most valuable in my opinion are books written by engineers, who designed and developed aircraft, and described how things happened first hand. Below follow a number of books written by engineers with exception of one written by a non engineer.

F/A-18 Hornet

For a long period of time I had a conviction that F/A-18 Hornet wasn’t that good a plane and aesthetically it didn’t look good to me. But a book on F/A-18 development has changed my mind. It was written by a non-engineer, nevertheless this book is worth reading since it’s full of valuable information on F/A-18 design and development and subsequent service.

The Hornet: The Inside Story of the F/A-18 by Orr Kelly is a very interesting since it provides ample information starting from Hornet inception to it usage by US Marine and US Navy.

The Power To Fly

Is a book by Brian H. Rowe who started as an engineer at General Electric Aviation Engines and grew up to be a CEO of GE Aviation and was responsible among other things for the development of GE90 high-bypass turbofan engine that powers Boeing 777 plane. What I liked about this book was that Brian described a number of engineering and managerial challenges that he faced throughout his career in GE and how he and his team overcame them. This book could keep you up at night reading.

Adventures of an engineer

Next book is called Herman the German: Just Lucky I Guess by Gerhard Neumann.

In The Power To Fly book Brian Rowe has mentioned his manager Gerhard Neumann, who Brian later succeeded. It turns out that Gerhard Nouman was an incredible person who had a life packed with such many adventures that all Indiana Jones franchise pale in comparison to it. Started as an apprentice of a German car mechanic before World War II, Gerhard ended up being a CEO of GE Aviation Engines. Most of the book is dedicated to Gerhards adventures as an aircraft mechanic in China during the WWII and his 10,000 miles trip in 1947 from Hong Kong to Jerusalem in a Willys Jeep with his wife and a dog. The adventures he described at times felt like unbelievable, yet they happened. Read the book to find out more.

Boeing 747

747: Creating the World’s First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation by Joe Sutter is not only an interesting book about the development of Boeing 747, but it also describes the history of Boeing aircrafts from early 20’s of twentieth century as witnessed by a boy growing up in Seattle until the latest version of Boeing 747-8 family of jets. What I liked the most about this book was a detailed description Joe provided on how the Boeing 747 was designed and developed, despite being a secondary project that was thought as unimportant by Boeing upper management at the time. Joe Sutter mentioned not once how safety of airplanes at Boeing was the utmost priority what seems like no longer the case in today’s Boeing.

source

What this post is about?

If you are interested in Apollo Moon program and curious what books are worth reading on the subject, probably this post may help you.

So far, I’ve read more than a dozen of books on U.S. Apollo program which were written by people coming from all walks of life. There were flight directors and controllers, engineers, surely, astronauts, historians and journalists. As such, I tend to classify the books on Moon program into four main categories based on the background of the authors.

Books classification 

• Engineers and scientists
  • Books written by engineers, including flight directors and controllers who took part in the Apollo program. These tend to be more technical and down to earth with lots of details for technically inclined readers
• Scientists and engineers beyond Apollo
  • Books written by authors with scientific background who were not part of Apollo program
•  Astronauts
  • Books written by astronauts. These ones range from technical to more emotional ones
• Historians and journalists
  • Books written by historians and journalists

Examples

• Engineers and scientists

  • Flight: My Life in Mission Control by Christopher Kraft

  • Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz

  • Go, Flight!: The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control, 1965–1992 by Rick Houston, Milt Heflin, et al. 

  • Safely to Earth: The Men and Women Who Brought the Astronauts Home by Jack Clemons

  • Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles

  • Left Brains for the Right Stuff: Computers, Space, and History by Hugh Blair-Smith

• Scientists and engineers beyond Apollo

  • Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight by David A. Mindell

  • The Apollo Guidance Computer: Architecture and Operation by Frank O’Brien

  • The Apollo Chronicles: Engineering America’s First Moon Missions by Brandon R. Brown

•  Astronauts
  • Technical 
    • Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race by David Scott and Alexei Leonov
  • Emotional 

    • Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys by Michael Collins 

    • The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America’s Race in Space by Eugene Cernan

• Historians and journalists
  • Historians

    • A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin

    • First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen

  • Journalists

    • Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon by Jeffrey Kluger

    • Apollo 13 by Jeffrey Kluger

    • Disaster Strikes!: The Most Dangerous Space Missions of All Time by Jeffrey Kluger

Personal viewpoint

I personally, liked the most books from first and second category written by engineers and scientists who took an active part in the program and others who were influenced by the Apollo events and became engineers and scientists themselves fascinated with Lunar program. 

What I like about more technical books is the explanation of how certain systems were envisioned and designed. How did they worked in practice and what challenges engineers faced throughout the systems’ life and how they were tackled. 

Why should you care about technical books?

If you are a technically inclined person, reading the technical books on Apollo program may bring you enjoyment of learning how various types of obstacles were solved by people working day to day on the most challenging aspect of then never done before and exciting endeavor. You also may trace the beginnings of the U.S. space program that can be felt to these days in managing International Space Station (ISS), unmanned space vehicles traversing our solar system and beyond and private space companies.

source

Why to write about space now?

I’ve been long fascinated with space exploration, especially with Apollo Lunar program. So far I’ve read a dozen of books and watched more than dozens of documentaries, interviews and movies on the subject. I have to tell you my enthusiasm is not even close to be exhausted. As you may know this year will mark 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 first Moon landing that took place on July 20th, 1969, 20:17 UTC. It’s not  strange that last year we saw the First Man movie about Neil Armstrong hitting the theaters across the globe. This year on March 8th long awaited Apollo 11 documentary featuring never before seen hi quality video along with re-mastered videos was released in IMAX format in theaters. It seems like more is to come when we get closer to July 20th of 2019.

What books do I recommend?

source

I recommend Flight: My Life in Mission Control by Christopher Kraft. In my mind it is one of the most interesting books written about American space program by the founding father of mission control.

source

I also find Sunburst and Luminary: An Apollo Memoir book by Don Eyles very interesting from an engineer-programmer point of view. He describes in detail how the Lunar Module (LM) software was designed and behaved in practice.

source

It is hard to not recommend The Last Man on the Moon book by Eugene Cernan who was the last man so far on the Moon. I find this book very inspirational thanks to Cernan’s insightful thoughts and his deep personality. He was able to describe his emotions while being on the Moon with vivid colors. It feels like you join him there. 

What documentaries and movies are worth watching?

Actually, there are quite a lot documentaries that are available for free on YouTube. But there are a number of very good ones that worth the money to pay for them. I’ll mention only a number of them. Others may be found in my earlier Deep Space, Do You Copy? post.

I recommend you to watch Apollo 11 documentary that was released recently (at time of writing) in IMAX if possible. It successfully conveys the enormity of the event that unfolds before your eyes. It is possible at times to forget that you are watching the movie. I would also mention the sound track for the film by Matt Morton that helps this film to stand out.

It turns out that Apollo 11 documentary stands upon shoulders of another, today long forgotten For All Mankind documentary from 1989 by Al Reinert. It is also accompanied by very impressive sound tracks of Brian Eno and provides interesting interviews with Apollo astronauts along with nice video of them having fun on the way to the Moon and on the surface. 

Conclusion

The manned space exploration is again an exciting topic since Israeli Beresheet space craft is on its way to the Moon and a Chinese vehicle is exploring the Moon as I write these lines. US SpaceX and Canadian Space Agency partnering with NASA and others to built Gateway a Lunar Space Station for a long stay on Moon orbit and on the Moon surface on our way to Mars.  So, book your next flight with Virgin Galactic, take a seat, fasten your belts, check oxygen level and prepare for a liftoff to space.

source

There are other things too

In the middle of Deep Learning rush we forget that there are other things on this planet and off it that are fascinating. That’s right, I want to share with you the best materials I saw so far on Moon exploration that are highly recommended.

Books From Apollo Participants 

There are quite a few books written about US space program. But there are few that are really good. I’ve chanced to read some of them and below follow the best ones in my opinion.

The Last Man On The Moon Book

The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America’s Race in Space

This book is very special and it is a memoir by Gene Cernan the commander of Apollo 17. He was literally the last person to walk on the moon.

Pros. There is a special atmosphere in this book. The descriptions are so vivid and colorful. Gene Cernan was deeply touched by lunar visits since he was there twice on Apollo 10 and then Apollo 17. It is available on Kindle.

                                               Cons. It finished so fast. (No photos in the book)

The Last Man On The Moon Movie

There is also a movie named the same which may be found for free on the internet or bought here. Here is the trailer.

Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race

Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race

This book combines recollections by Apollo 15 commander David Scott and his contemporary Alexi Leonov who was the first man to walk in space.

Pros. Very interesting book because of complementing accounts provided by both distinguished persons. Available in Kindle format.

Cons. Not a single photo.

From The Other Side

Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond

The book below provides very different account of the matters described in the books above. It is written by Gene Kranz the Flight throughout entire US space program starting from Mercury and ending in Shuttle era.

Pros. The more technical book than astronauts accounts. Available on Kindle.

Cons. No photos again.

Documentaries that cannot be missed

1. EARTHRISE: The First Lunar Voyage – documentary about Apollo 10.
2. Apollo 13 Documentary 1958 – as it was portrayed by NASA.
3. Apollo 15 Remembered 40 Years Later – documentary for Apollo 15 featuring Neil Armstrong and others.
4. In The Shadow of The Moon – british documentary with interesting stuff.
5. The Last Man On The Moon – documentary featuring Gene Cernan.
6. Failure Is Not An Option A Flight Control History of NASA – documentary featuring flight controllers and Gene Kranz.
7. Moon Machines – tools that made lunar program possible and people behind them.
8. From The Earth To The Moon – a series produced by Tom Hanks. 

Not because they are easy, but because they are hard!

This post can’t be finished without the full inspirational to say the least speech by John F. Kennedy. It is incomparable to the current president of the US. It is a giant  speech for a president and a giant gap between then and now. 

President Kennedy’s Speech at Rice University