Posts: 675
From: Hudson, MA
Registered: Jul 2005

posted 04-30-2007 11:34 AM            

---

Hello all cSrs

Ive just finished reading 'Comm Check... The Final Flight of Suttle Columbia' by Michael Cabbage and William Harwood. I thought it was a very good book. A real page turner in the like of Mullane's 'Riding Rockets'. The amount of detail/facts was impressive, especially about the decisions (or lack of) made after launch with regards to the [potential] foam damage to the TPS. I highly recommend it.

Paul

Posts: 1328
From: Carrollton, GA USA
Registered: Jan 2003

posted 04-30-2007 11:38 AM               

---

Paul,

I agree with you. I purchased the book from the authors at Al Hallonquist's Air & Space Show a few years ago. I read it a short time later.

Gilbert

Posts: 532
From:
Registered: Feb 2004

Posts: 532
From:
Registered: Feb 2004

posted 05-01-2007 08:04 AM               

---

Okay, I've found no good thread on the book here, so maybe I read a thread on another board.

Anyway, I consider Comm Check to be a pretty good book about the accident and the investigation. I have not read it cover-to-cover, but did skim major portions of it and it presents a pretty accurate picture of the investigation, in which I was personally involved. If you get to the section where Admiral Gehman describes how the CAIB investigators were at a bar and started discussing who would play the board members in a movie, I was the one who started that conversation and I still have the piece of paper where we wrote down all the names. Admiral Gehman thought that he should be played by Paul Newman (because he's tall, skinny, and, er, older). But some of us argued that he needed to be played by someone younger, with star power...