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The REAL Space Cowboys
Written
by: Ed Buckbee with Wally Schirra In 1959, seven
U.S. military fighter pilots were selected to train as America's first
astronauts. Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott
Carpenter, Wally Schirra and Deke Slayton accepted the country's call to service
and would become known as the Mercury Seven (M7). These men, who had jockeyed
for the best flying jobs in the military, began competing for rides on rockets.
Most would eventually vie for the ultimate ride to the moon. This was the
dream--a chance to ascend to the top of the pyramid--a lion-hearted pilot's
deepest desire. The author Ed
Buckbee, who has enjoyed a 40+ year association with the U.S. manned space
flight program, follows these brave men, the last true American heroes, who
pioneered the U.S. space program. Through time and personal friendships, he
captures dreams of flying higher, faster and farther than anyone in the known
universe. Readers are invited behind the scenes to witness the competition
between chimpanzees and astronauts, and the conflict between NASA engineers
designing capsules and those who would pilot them.
Through this book, readers feel the collective will of a nation to defeat
the Russians in an all-out space race via an American team of 400,000 engineers,
technicians, astronauts and support personnel who performed as if the country
were at war. The eras of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo-- these were times of nobility and humility, but also times of arrogance, tension, and from time-to-time, humor. "Gotcha's" were commonplace astronaut pranks and a dubious answer to the question; "Are you a turtle?" resulted in a healthy bar tab.
But what of our first space heroes after the Apollo program was completed? Accepting the call of Project Mercury meant a lifetime commitment. Their work continued with motivational programs for youth through the U.S. Space Camp programs, public programs at institutions such as the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame, and others. The author himself shared the task of motivating the next generation through creation of U.S. Space Camp and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. Shepard is a prominent figure in the book. Together, he and the author prepared anniversary presentations, articles and TV interviews. They traveled to seven countries and more than twenty-five states marketing and opening Space Camps. They designed, developed and built the U. S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. As Shepard proclaimed upon Buckbee’s retirement from the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, "He’s a space relic. We need to keep him and put him on exhibit in that space museum and when he dies, bury him next to that damn monkey." Seven brave men volunteered to be the first. They would lead a world into space and change it forever. Together they would make the first high risk flights, take a generation of spacecraft into the unknown and point the way for generations to follow. They were our first astronauts. They were star voyagers. The path they blazed now shines for others; on a voyage that is a measure of the best in us all and the Mercury 7 were first. They are The Real Space Cowboys.
200 pages, 8 color pages, 24 black & white glossy pages Includes Bonus DVD-10 with rare film footage - 1972 Interview with Wernher von Braun, 30th Anniversary Documentary on Skylab, "Gotcha" film about Alan Shepard, Astronaut Hall of Fame Film - Reach for the Stars, 1997 Panel Discussion at Pensacola with Armstrong, Shepard, Lovell, Aldrin & Cernan, 2002 Panel Discussion at Pensacola Naval Aviation Museum with the Mercury Astronauts, "Gotcha" Documentary - The Lighthouse Never Fails, Wernher von Braun Documentary - From the Valley to the Moon, Documentary - The Flight of Freedom 7, Mercury Astronauts Documentary - The First, "Gotcha" film of Apollo 12. $29.95 USA, $36.95 CAN, £17.95 UK ISBN: 1-894959-21-3
In the book The Real Space Cowboys, from the
bottom of page 163 to the top of page 164 part of Al Shepard's speech was
omitted by the printer, it
The above photo of Ed and Wally was provided by Kulik Photographic, Falls Church, VA www.kulikphoto.com
e The Real Space C
Book Reviews of
The Real Space Cowboys
Book review in December 2006 issue of PLANETARIANJOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL PLANETARIUM SOCIETY Reviewed by Steve Tidey, 58 Prince Avenue, Southend, Essex, England Many of us have read books about the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs written by either the astronauts or by some other insider, but this book has a unique angle: one of its co-authors, Ed Buckbee, became NASA’s public affairs officer at the Marshall Spaceflight Center soon after development of the Mercury program began. He stayed with NASA through to the late 1990s, by which time he had become the prime mover behind the development of Space Camp at the Kennedy Space Center. I found it interesting to read the PR department’s view of many of the well known events that occurred during NASA’s glory days of the 1960s. On this point we’re treated to some amusing anecdotes, such as finding out that whenever the foreign press visited the Marshall or Kennedy centers, they all assumed Wernher von Braun was head of NASA, as he was getting all the glory in the media! This irritated his bosses, and eventually they stopped inviting von Braun to take part in press conferences. And there was a constant battle between the press office and the Mercury astronauts to make one of their fold available for press interviews and pictures almost every day. A compromise was reached in which Al Shepard would nominate one astronaut to be made available (or sacrificed,” as he put it) for a short time just once a week to satisfy the press. I always find it useful to contrast the can-do ethos of NASA in the 1960s (which comes across in this type of book) with the current NASA, which tries to be can-do but seems hidebound by so many things in the modern world that didn’t exist back then. So it was useful to read here a quote from Wally Schirra in which he says, “ I don’t know if NASA could handle a von Braun today. They are so bureaucratic. In my day we had an inspired can-do agency. We had a president who was committed. We had Jim Webb who could sweet talk the Hill and the White House and we had von Braun to sell the program.” The slogan around the NASA offices in those days was “Late to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise!” And, boy did they ever. The book’s text is quite inspiring, and one gets a real sense of remarkable people exploring a new scientific and technical frontier with great enthusiasm, feeling their way almost in the dark much of the time. Some of the astronauts’ hang-ups are explored, one being their extreme irritation with being compared with the monkeys that preceded them into orbit. Shepard is quoted saying, “I get a little tired of checking every simulator and capsule seat for primate poop before I climb in.” Er, Yes, quite... The Mercury astronauts often relieved the tension of training by playing a “gotcha” on each other. This normally involved practical jokes that embarrassed a colleague in public. Many of these are spread throughout the book, and one gets a clear sense that the camaraderie that this helped build between the original seven astronauts welded them together into lifelong buddies. And there are many quotes, some from as recently as 2004, which show that that closeness is still as strong as ever. Buckbee’s association with Space Camp takes over in the later chapters, as he describes how it grew from an idea suggested by von Braun in the early 1970s. Buckbee certainly has a fair-sized ego, as he features in probably half of the many interesting pictures that accompany the text (or, more likely, they’re from his own collection). It’s clear that he admired Al Shepard perhaps the most, as Shepard gets the lion’s share of the book’s attention. And that’s not just because he made the first sub-orbital flight. No, he clearly epitomised the type of character that NASA was looking for as the first person to brave sitting on a rocket that could have blown up. The closing chapter has a moving account of Shepard’s and his wife’s ashes being spread over the Pacific from two US Navy helicopters, and this is preceded by quotes from the surviving Mercury astronauts, who read eulogies for Shepard. So this is a fine book. There are lots of little insights I’d not come across in other publications, and the many astronaut interviews bring to life areas of the text which would otherwise have been rather ho-hum without the addition of knowing what the guys in the capsules thought about various topics and concerns. It’s another fascinating reminder of what a marvelous achievement the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs were, and it makes one hope that we can find such worthy people again as the modern day Orion program to the Moon and Mars gets off the ground.
Review by Mark Mortimer
Summary - (Jun 5, 2005) Diaries hold the accounts of some of the dearest, most precious moments of our lives. The pleasure of a first kiss, the euphoria of wining a medal or the satisfaction from a commendation all get entered. Ed Buckbee, with Wally Schirra, in their book The Real Space Cowboys share emotional highlights of their own and others from the early U.S. space program. Given that they both have many years of first hand involvement, there are many exciting, warm and funny moments to share just like
in reviewing an old diary.
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In Wernher von Braun, discover a man who was committed to living in a new
frontier. His words, "late to bed, early to rise, work like hell and
advertise," are a testament to multi-tasking. Von Braun, the German-born
rocket scientist and visionary of space flight, convinced presidents and
congressmen to spend millions exploring space for peaceful purposes. "Space
flight did not happen because somebody thought that it would be an intriguing
thing to do, but because it is part of our human destiny, and because its time
had come. Let us continue to accept the challenge and to respond with our best
ability," he said in 1970.
