Astronaut: 1961 onwards (all roles and nationalities) (Owners' Workshop Manual)

Quite informative about the doing and being of astronauts.And then I'm going to mention a photo caption error on page 53 which amuses me. On page 53 which is opening pages of Chapter Three, Selection and Equipment, the chapter introduction ends with the phrase, " ... although high standards naturally still apply." and immediately below that comment about high standards the caption for a pages 52-53 photo of the 7 Mercury astronauts standing next to a USAF jet makes the fundamental error of misidentifying the jet as a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom when it actuality is a Convair F-106B which has tail number 90158 which is visible in the original uncropped image. Several sources comment that the photograph was taken on 01/21/1961 & has several reference numbers through the decades, those being, S61-01250, L71-2971, and EL-1996-0090. NOTE: F-4 Phantom has a much larger intake which is located lower on fuselage side and is beneath aft cockpit canopy, compared to F-106B intake which is fully behind cockpit canopy. And, the F-4 has individually opening canopies for forward and aft seats whereas the F-106 in the image has a single canopy covering both the forward and aft seat positions. I really have to wonder how the editors made That error.Book arrived in mail this afternoon and has only been in my possession for about an hour and a half now.My overall impression of book remains high but there is this nagging question of how many more fundamental errors are in the text and captions. While I did have the knowledge to identify this error, I do not have enough detailed knowledge of astronaut programs around the world to identify pretty much any other errors the text or captions might include. Other people with more knowledge will have to do that.

The history

This is a great book. It arrived very quickly.

This was a informative read. The Haynes series contains a wide variety of books of this type, I have read several and have enjoyed them.

Great!

Although the cover of this book - as with all of the Haynes space books - is fairly innocuous, once I opened it up it really blew me away. The number and scope of colour photographs is amazing; they are nearly all crystal clear, well chosen, and as completely up-to-date as possible in the ongoing story of human space exploration. The supporting text is thoughtful and well laid out, and full credit for this is due to the author Ken MacTaggart and the layout artist, among many who worked on or produced this book. I might add that I do not know Ken, although he once sought my advice on some people shown in an obscure Soviet photograph, so my judgement of his book is not clouded by friendship. Truly, this is an excellent book, and even though I am the author and editor of a slew of books on spaceflight history, there was so much in here that was new and interesting to me. There's only one thing left for me to say: if you are at all interested in the story of human spaceflight from Gagarin on, then this is the book for you, so contact Amazon and purchase it now! A true five-star production.

Over the last couple of months, I've been revisiting my Haynes space "manuals" and rediscovering what I enjoyed so much about them. So far, my favorites have been the ones on the Lunar Rover, Saturn V, and the Apollo 13 mission. The idea of a manual filled with detailed insights into astronaut training, spacesuits, and life in space appealed to me, and seemed like a natural companion to their books on space hardware. The result is a little bit of a letdown.The section on current and future manned spacecraft was quite interesting, and there are quite a few interesting asides spread throughout. There are many excellent photographs, and none of them suffer from the compression issues which have plagued previous Haynes books. I'm also happy to see that Haynes is FINALLY using proper stitched bindings, rather than the awful glued ones they've used in the past.While this book DOES deliver in the sense that it provides "an insight into the selection, training, equipment, roles and experiences" of astronauts, it only does so in dribs and drabs. The text feels rather basic and introductory, and lacks the serious technical details found in Haynes' other space titles. The book tries to cram too much into 188 pages, and each of the 10 chapters feels rather lightweight as a result. This is especially disappointing, considering that the author co-wrote the extraordinarily in-depth Apollo 11 Flight Journal. Although Haynes' other space books have always had plenty of diagrams (the Saturn V manual had more than 80!), there are almost none here, except for the cutaway EMU shown on the cover, and a few annotated exterior views. Although there are plenty of cool pictures of astronauts floating in space and undergoing training on Earth, there's not much for us hardcore space geeks to really chew on.Is this book worth buying? If you're just getting interested in manned spaceflight, or have a difficult time understanding some of the more complex concepts involved, you'll probably enjoy it. As someone fascinating by arcane "how it works" type details, and who's read Haynes' other space books, I really expected more from it.