| RIDING ROCKETS The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane New York: Scribner, 2006 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-7432-7682-5 | ||||
| ISBN-10 0-7432-7682-5 | 368pp. | HC/BWI | $26.00 | |
| Page 32: | "These were just steel tubes filled with a propellant of ammonium perclorate and aluminum powder." |
| Spelling: S/B "perchlorate". |
| Page 34: | "It would be more than just the unknowns of a new spacecraft that TFNGs would face." |
| Missing word: S/B "that the TFNGs". |
| Page 36: | "The air force also told me what to wear." |
| Capitalization: S/B "Air Force". |
| Page 66: | "Originally designed in the late '50s by the USAF to serve as an advanced training aircraft, NASA had acquired a squadron of them as proficiency trainers for the astronauts." |
| Dangling participle: S/B two sentences: "The T-38 was originally designed in the late '50s by the USAF to serve as an advanced training aircraft. NASA had acquired a squadron of them as proficiency trainers for the astronauts." |
| Page 69: | "In my air force career there had been numerous incidents..." |
| Capitalization: S/B "Air Force". |
| Page 69: | "In fact, it happened so often worldwide the air force ultimately banned the practice..." |
| Capitalization: S/B "Air Force". |
| Page 71: | "Some of them were going to be affected, of that, I was sure." |
| Punctuation: S/B "of that I was sure". |
| Page 71: | "I had been [affected] in my early air force flying career." |
| Capitalization: S/B "Air Force". |
| Page 105: | Footnote: "STS-51L, the fated Challenger flight, was supposed to be the last flight of 1985, but flew as the second mission of 1986." |
| Missing wod: S/B "ill-fated". |
| Page 174: | "Other than the breath of the cabin fans and the white-noise hiss of the UHF radio, the cockpit was midnight still." |
| Why was the squelch open? Perhaps to provide white noise as a soporific. |
| Page 184: | "In sunset and sunrise terminators, thunderstorms cast hundreds of mile-long shadows." |
| hyphenation: S/B "thunderstorms cast hundreds-of-miles-long shadows". (Better yet: "thunderstorms cast shadows hundreds of miles long.") |
| Page 207: | "...but he would still be flying the shuttle as a non-mission essential passenger for PR purposes." |
| Hyphenation: S/B "non-mission-essential passenger". |
| Page 228: | "President Reagan ordered the formation of the Roger's Commission to take over the investigation." |
| Punctuation: S/B "Rogers Commission". (This mistake is repeated twice more.) |
| Page 247: | "As much as I disliked Young for his attempts to torpedo my astronaut career, the position he took on some issues were the correct ones." |
| Number error: S/B "positions". |
| Page 282: | "There was precedence for that." |
| Spelling: S/B "precedent". |
| Page 312: | "I knew Dave was as scared as I was. While jogging with him, he had quoted a Scripture passage..." |
| Person: S/B "me". |
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