Overview
Main description
The author, a NASA astronaut, orbited the earth more than two thousand times in the space station Mir and became the first American to spacewalk outside a foreign spacecraft. But he paid a high price for these distinctions. Inside, Mir was as mess, and several power failures lefts its inhabitants in total darkness. Worst of all, Linenger reports, was the lack of professionalism among their Russian handlers. "Mission control in Moscow became our enemy rather than our friend." he writes, "our nemesis rather than our support structure." Mission control threatened to cut the Russian astronauts pay if they performed poorly, and dangled bonuses for doing well. And mission control's propensity to micromanage was so extreme that the astronauts had their every activity programmed down to the minute.
Table of contents
Part I: On the Planet. Looking Upward. Becoming an Astronaut. Hello, Russia. Hanging Out in Star City. Training, Russian Style. Tomorrow, Mir. Crew Quarters. Off to Work. Part II: Off the Planet. Docking a One-Hundred-Ton Space Shuttle. My First Days on Mir. The Arrival of Vasily and Sasha. "Fire!" An Attempted Coverup. Cosmonatus, Da! Mission Control, Nyet! The Glories of Earth Gazing. Profound Isolation. Escaping a Near-Death Collision. Housekeeping in Space. Hurtling Into Nothingness. Broken Trust. Taking a Stroll. Going Home. Even the Air Tastes Sweet. Part III: Back on the Planet. Home at Last. Getting Back on My Feet. Aftershock. "Are You Glad You Flew on Mir?"
Author comments
Capt. Jerry M. Linenger, M.D., Ph.D., is a retired U.S. Navy flight surgeon and NASA astronaut. A naval academy graduate, Dr. Linenger holds a doctorate in epidemiology, a master's in systems management, and a master's in public health policy. He has also been awarded three honorary doctorate degrees in science. During his mission aboard Mir, he logged fifty million miles in more than two thousand Earth orbits. He was the first American to undock from the space station in Soyuz spacecraft and the first American to spacewalk wearing a Russian spacesuit outside a foreign craft. At the completion of his mission, he had spent more continuous time in space than any male American.
Back cover copy
It was like nothing on Earth. "An unvarnished account of his near-disastrous stay, in 1997, on Russia's creaky space station...an engrossing report that NASA's publicity machine will bemoan."--Booklist. "[Linenger's] frank, personable prose shows readers what it's like to be an astronaut--or at least to be this particular astronaut, trying, along with his Russian companions, to live and work with good humor on an 11-year-old, half-broken, famously flammable space station as its air fills with antifreeze that is leaking out of shoddy cooling lines."--Publishers Weekly. "NASA astronaut Linenger spent five months aboard the Russian space station Mir, a spacecraft operating far beyond its design life. His personal account vividly captures the challenges and privation he endured both before and during his flight."--Library Journal.
