Live from Cape Canaveral: Covering the Space Race, from Sputnik to Today |
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Jay Barbree
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Pages: 336 (Hardcover)
Preface: Tom Brokaw
ISBN: 0061233927
Pub: Collins
Pub date: 2007-09
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 112580
Reader Reviews:
A Huge Disappointment (5/5 people found this helpful)
This book certainly does its best to create an exciting and enjoyable romp through space history, but ends up being a wasted opportunity. Considering the title, there is surprisingly little personal insight in this book, and I found very little feel of what it was like to report first-hand on events, which is the way the book is being marketed.
Instead of the advertised personal insight into the space program from someone who was there, it read to me as a fast-paced but extremely generic skim over the highlights of space history. Most disappointingly, it is riddled with typos and factual errors. The errors include confusing fictional moments from space movies with real events, getting critical facts, names and dates wrong, and inventing transcripts of conversations that no-one ever recorded. Perhaps the mistakes were well-meaning attempts to boost the energy level of the book and try and make it a thrilling read: Barbree certainly could have made a great novel out of this material. But as a historical memoir, much of this book is only an approximation of what truthfully happened in the space program.
I did enjoy the non-space parts of the book. Barbree writes very well about his work on the Carter campaign, his coverage of civil rights, and the heart attack that nearly ended his life. This interesting writing shows that he can be a great writer when he nails his subject matter. But these are only small parts of a book which mostly concentrates on the space program, and covers it surprisingly badly.
I was most particularly disappointed to see a faked moon photograph presented in the book as if it was real. Barbree used this photo in a prior book in a similar manner, resulting in some understandable debate and controversy, and I am saddened to see him use it here again. At a time when far too many people are asking if we ever truly went to the moon, deceptively presenting an artist-created composite image as a real photo is risky and adds fuel to the fire.
Towards the end of the book, Barbree explains that when telling space history to his grandchildren, they jokingly accuse him of making it up, and that "telling whoppers, I suppose, is fuel for writers." Having read this book, I couldn't help but read that line with a deep sense of irony. Intentionally or unintentionally, there are a good many "whoppers" in this book.
If you are looking for a book which gives an insider's view of the space program, this is not it. It's neither a particularly personal reflection, nor is it accurate. It is, in fact, a rather sad ending to what must have been a fascinating space reporting career.
High on Energy, Terrible on Facts (5/5 people found this helpful)
Barbree attempts to give a high-octane account of the space race. For those with no prior knowledge of the events it probably reads as a thrilling story. Unfortunately, there are a huge number of mistakes, most of which would have been easy to check. This results in a horribly misleading book, surprisingly so considering Barbree is supposed to have personal experience of these people and events.
A few small examples: Barbree makes much of his friendship with the original astronauts. But he misspells the full name of the first American in space. Many other astronaut names are misspelled, along with other space notables like von Braun. When describing John Glenn's flight, he makes much of the 'fireflies' that Glenn saw, saying Glenn 'realized they were frost.' Glenn, in his own biography, explains that he had no idea what the particles were, believed they were nothing to do with his spacecraft, and it was only later missions that worked it out.
Another famous space story is astronaut Scott Carpenter's call of "Godspeed, John Glenn" as Glenn launched into space. Rather than placing it correctly at the moment of liftoff, Barbree has it being said before the countdown - completely changing the meaning.
These are just small examples. Other factual details are much more important and less forgivable.
When covering Russian missions, the writing is even worse. He describes spacecraft doing orbits which are physically impossible. He says the Soviet's N1 rocket was over 200 feet taller than it was - a huge difference. He imagines having some magical access to Gagarin's thoughts and feelings during his spacecraft re-entry, and the resulting account is completely wrong. Instead of a smooth re-entry that had Gagarin smiling, the re-entry was dangerous and harrowing, as Gagarin's two modules did not separate as planned. Barbree seems to be going by the Soviet version of events released in 1961, rather than looking at any recent reliable source. By inventing insights into Gagarin's thoughts and character, he gives a misleading authority to a completely incorrect account.
Barbee recounts that Gagarin's spacecraft was called "Swallow." Gagarin's spacecraft was called, simply, "Vostok," which means "East." Swallow was a name given by some media in 1961 as Gagarin's callsign, not the spacecraft name. Except that information was also incorrect - Gagarin's callsign was "Cedar." So Barbree, here, has taken 46-year-old incorrect information that has long been superceded, and used it in a way that made it even more incorrect and confusing. It's moments like this (of which this is just one example - they are on almost every page) that the book is unforgivably sloppy.
When Barbree gets basic details wrong about very famous and well-known stories, I have little faith in his much-touted personal friendships and connections with the astronauts. It seems that he doesn't even know details that can be found in the astronauts' own books, never mind any insider stories. He gets so many things wrong - such as which astronauts were civilians, and which were military - you begin to wonder if he really ever met any of them. He describes one astronaut as "NASA's only civilian astronaut" at a time when ten had been selected to join the corps. He describes a highly-respected former test pilot instructor as a "former airline pilot," which is insulting to the person's skills. He repeatedly misquotes the most famous line from Apollo 13, "Houston, we've had a problem."
Barbree repeatedly uses the word "gravity" in a way that shows he does not understand its meaning. Geographical features on Earth are placed (literally) half a continent away from reality. The shuttle solid rockets are described as firing five seconds before liftoff, something that would rip the shuttle off the pad if attempted. He indicates the shuttle has the same amount of fuel in its fuel tanks before launch as when ten miles high, suggesting some magical fuel-less levitation process. He does not understand when and why the Skylab program was created, writing a completely inaccurate history. He gets the length of Skylab missions wrong by a factor of three. A spacecraft that was left in low earth orbit is instead described as flying through the solar system. Spacecraft 20-year-missions are described in the past tense when those spacecraft have not yet been in space for 20 years. Acronyms are given incorrectly, and people given incorrect job titles. He incorrectly describes who chose Christa McAuliffe as the first teacher in space. He confuses moviemaker Frank Capra with his son. The book has at least one photo printed the wrong way round (despite the spacecraft name being very visible), and an artist-created composite of an astronaut on the moon that is not a genuine photograph, but presented here as real. People are given the honor of being "firsts" who were not, and entire conversations given in quote marks as if they were recorded and accurate, when in fact they are Barbree's best guess at what was said in private meetings that were never recorded and Barbree was not invited to. He takes conversations that happened in briefing rooms and moves them to more dramatic places such as when someone is sliding into a spacecraft. He even takes a fictional line from the Apollo 13 movie, a line said in the movie by Jim Lovell's mother that Lovell has called "the creative imagination of the screenwriter," and pretends that it was a line said to Jim Lovell from mission control by another astronaut. It's an attempt to pump up the energy level, an attempt which largely succeeds, but at the expense of any attempt at accuracy or reliability.
I'm concerned that people might read this book, which on the surface is an enjoyable read and seems to have a lot of authority and insights, and believe this was the way it happened. This was not the way it was - it is horribly misleading in its invention of facts, events and conversations.
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