Spaceman is an autobiography of Mike Massimino, an astronaut who
twice flew a mission to space. Once on the space shuttle Columbia
(which later exploded upon re-entry to Earth, killing the seven crew
members aboard), and once on the shuttle Atlantis to service the Hubble
Space Telescope.
Being the same age as Mike, I too
remember at seven years old watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon,
wearing my pajamas and marking history on my family's black and white
TV. Likely multitudes of American children watching that night dreamed
of becoming an astronaut and going into space. Mike was one of them,
but his was a dream that never died. He chased and fought for it until
it became a reality.
Massimino takes us with him on his journey
to NASA, helping us to feel all the excitement as well as all the
trepidation that he felt on each step along the way. When he got into
Columbia University, when he want on to MIT, when he was at first rejected by NASA, when he was selected for his first mission and then his second. Mike has a true talent for making his reader feel a part of it all.
My
favorite part of the book is from Mike's first trip to space. He and
astronaut Jim Newman were assigned the task of installing a new camera
on the Hubble. Massimino caught a glimpse of the Earth far below him
and it was so beautiful he had to look away. He writes, "My thought
looking down at the Earth was Wow. How much God our Father must love us that he gave us this home. He didn't put us on Mars or Venus with nothing but rocks and frozen waste. He gave us paradise and said, 'Live here.'"
Whether you are interested in science and space, once dreamed of being
an astronaut yourself, or just enjoy a good adventure story, Spaceman will satisfy. Blogging for Books provided this book to me for free in exchange
for my honest review.
