posted 04-01-2011 11:09 AM               

• Foreword by Charlie Duke
  
  
• This book follows Roosa through his somewhat-rugged childhood (his father was a surveyor and the family was very transient), his smoke jumping experiences in the Pacific Northwest (he began jumping at age 19), how he won his wings (via the now-extinct cadet program), his time at Edwards AFB (three other guys in his test pilot school class also became astronauts), and his NASA efforts (including detailed history of his work before being selected as prime CMP for Apollo 14 -- he was, for example, the CapCom when the Apollo 1 fire happened). Also discusses his post-NASA business ventures and activities.
  
  
• It's also a people/family story, with recollections by Roosa family members (including all four children), former schoolmates and fellow smoke jumpers.
  
  
• Memories from several astronauts are also interpolated, including (alphabetical order) Messrs. Armstrong, Brand, Cernan, Cunningham, Duke, Haise, Hartsfield, Lovell, Mitchell, Schmitt, Schweickart, Scott, and Worden.
  
  
• Geologist Farouk El-Baz, who worked closedly with CMPs, also contributed recollections.
  
  
• Should have about 60 photos, including images supplied by family members, and some NASA pictures which, to my knowledge, have not been seen in previous books.

posted 04-02-2011 05:42 PM               

To answer the inquiry from Australia, the book will be $24.95 list, and while distribution is still being set up (targeting gift shops of air and space museums, big box retailers, etc.) I know it will also be available directly from the publisher's website.

posted 08-10-2011 12:52 PM               

A couple of things may be tweaked but these should be what a prospective reader encounters on the outside.

posted 10-24-2011 07:57 PM               

Smoke Jumper, Moon Pilot
by Willie G. Moseley

Al Shepard was returning to the cosmos, and this time, he was going to walk on the Moon.

Grounded for most of the Sixties due to an inner ear problem, America's first man in space had been serving as NASA's Chief of the Astronaut Office, and had figured into the selection of crews for American manned space flights. Now healthy and cleared for flight himself, Shepard knew who he wanted on his own Apollo crew.

For Lunar Module Pilot, he selected a brilliant Navy aviator, Edgar Mitchell, a.k.a. "The Brain," who already had a doctorate of science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from M.I.T., and had been highly involved in the design of the Lunar Module.

The Command Module Pilot, who would be responsible for guiding the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon, placing it in a safe orbit, and returning it safely to Earth, was to be Air Force pilot Stuart Roosa.

And Roosa didn't even have a college degree when he had won his Air Force wings, and hadn't been on a backup crew for an Apollo flight.

But when it came to piloting skills, he was that good.

Stu Roosa's life was incredibly diverse – the second son of a government surveyor, he had spent his early childhood in a migratory lifestyle with his family before the Roosas settled in Claremore, Oklahoma, where Stu proved to be an excellent student and developed a lifelong love of hunting.

He became a smoke jumper for the Forest Service before enlisting in the Air Force's aviation cadet program. Excelling in piloting skills, Roosa had graduated from test pilot school at the legendary Edwards Air Force Base before being chosen as an astronaut.

Roosa loved his family and his country, and he loved to fly. Recollections in this detailed biography include memories from family members, schoolmates, and veteran smoke jumpers, pilots, and astronauts.

Smoke Jumper, Moon Pilot tells the story of a focused, determined, and patriotic youngster who believed in the American dream, and grew up to live it. At the age of 19, Stu Roosa was parachuting into the woods of the Pacific Northwest to fight forest fires.

• He joined the Air Force.
  
• He became a test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base.
  
• He was selected to be an astronaut by NASA.
  
• He went to the Moon.
  
• He became a successful businessman and big game hunter.

This is the family-authorized biography of Apollo 14 Command Module Pilot Stuart A. Roosa (1933-1994). It's the quintessential, All-American chronicle of the life of an Oklahoma farm boy whose initiative, drive and personal integrity earned him a place among the 24 individuals who made the most dramatic voyage in human history, and it's a story that needs to be told, now more than ever.

• Acclaim Press, 2011
  
• 6"x9" hardbound, 256 pages, illustrated
  
• ISBN: 978-1-935001-76-8

posted 02-09-2012 02:46 PM            

The first book signing for "Smoke Jumper, Moon Pilot" will be held at the award-winning Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma (Roosa's hometown) on Saturday, March 10th.

Tentatively scheduled to speak are Roosa family members, the publisher, and the author, who will also read a brief excerpt from the book.

In addition to having a disproportionate number of early astronauts (Cooper, Stafford, Pogue, Roosa, etc.), there's also a connection between some earlier Oklahoma aviation pioneers and space flight. Record-setting aviator The Sooner State's Wiley Post was one of the earliest developers of a pressurized flight suit, thus some buffs have proclaimed Post to have "invented the space suit." Post and humorist Will Rogers (who also claimed Claremore as his hometown) perished in a plane crash on 15 AUG 35.

Details about the Roosa book signing will soon be available at willrogers.com

posted 04-21-2012 09:26 PM               

Space-age fans and Stuart Roosa classmates lined up for a signing at Will Rogers Memorial Museum for the family-authorized book "Smoke Jumper, Moon Pilot: The Remarkable Life of Apollo 14 Astronaut Stuart Roosa" by Willie Moseley. People came from as far away as from Nevada, Texas and Alabama as well as Missouri and all over Oklahoma.

posted 04-22-2012 02:46 AM            

Has anybody else noticed the chapter on Apollo 1, and the cryptic way in which that chapter concludes: an intriguing suggestion from Roosa that the Apollo accident investigation board missed something and "got it wrong". This is something the author says Roosa mentioned to people (including one of his sons) over the years, but always refused to elaborate on, effectively taking to the grave whatever it was he was referring to.

Presumably this was not something so serious as to prevent Roosa from entrusting his life to the Apollo spacecraft a few years later (heavily redesigned though it was).

posted 04-22-2012 03:55 AM            

Any suggestion that the crew contributed to their own fete that day, however inadvertent, innocent or innocuous was stifled during the enquiry.

A likely hypothesis put forward by NAA was shot down by the board of enquiry as it involved Gus brushing against a disconnected but still powered gas chromatograph cable which.... it was subsequently proved, could arc if moved.

The cable in queston was located in the lower equipment bay near to the ECU adjacent to Gus' couch; the believed origin of the fire.

The findings of the board of enquiry that the fire originated in chaffed wiring in and around the ECU was speculation for which there was little evidence and which directly contradicted eye witness testimony from the morning of the January 27th test.

There was however telemetry and physical evidence to support the NAA hypothesis as to the cause of the fire but that was suppressed.

Imagine a modern day board of enquiry involving a civil aviation crash during which the board on enquiry blatantly discounted any involvement by the crew. It simply would not be permitted.

I read that passage in the Roosa book and came to the conclusion that Stuart believed the NAA proposed scenario was credible but he did not want to denigrate the reputation of the crew in any way.

Which was a shame. Whilst Gus may have triggered the events that started the fire, there was no way that he or any of the crew could have been held responsible for the outcome.

posted 06-08-2012 08:51 AM               

I wrote to Stu Roosa in 1970 (long before Apollo 14)to request his autograph on a cover, and he sent me back a personally signed letter, an inscribed business suit litho portrait of himself, and the cover autographed by the entire Apollo 14 crew. Needless to say, I was pleased and grateful.

Roosa was certainly one of the under-appreciated Apollo astronauts, probably because his crew mates on Apollo 14 were such strong figures. His commander was the legendary Alan Shepard and his LM pilot the brilliant Ed Mitchell.

I asked Ed Mitchell last year why Shepard had chosen him as LM pilot on the crew. There has been some who criticized Mitchell's selection because of his relative junior status. "Because he wanted to get home," was Mitchell's reply.