posted April 13, 2008 04:10 AM               

I told Colin when I opted to take on this project that I probably now had some insight into the mind of a backup astronaut crewmember who had just been assigned to a prime crew. You get the sense of accomplishment, but at the same time you also feel the weight of the work needed to be done to complete the task and you wonder if you really are up to the job. Lord willing, I am. But I will be saying a few "Al Shepherd's Prayers" (be it a real prayer or one introduced by "The Right Stuff") until I do finally deliver the manuscript.

Anyway, enough about that. I would like to at least tell you my working title for the book and a little taste of what is intended to be about. It will be called "Outposts On The Frontier: Stations and Laboratories in Earth Orbit". The intent is to cover space stations from MOL and Salyut all the way to the ISS. Skylab will also be covered in a fashion that compliments the fourthcoming "Homesteading Space" title. I also plan to throw in some ESA Spacelab and Spacehab coverage as well, since even though they weren't space stations in the strict sense, they were space laboratories dedicated to microgravity based research.

posted April 15, 2008 09:52 AM               

The book provides a very good overview of Man's successes and failures at performing long-duration space flights. The following programs are covered in the book: Salyut, Mir, Skylab, Shuttle-Spacelab, Shuttle-Mir and finally the International Space Station (ISS). Future plans conclude the book with a look at the Chinese space program. It is a very enjoyable read throughout, readily accessible to the non-specialists and provides a excellent starting point for those who would like to go deeper into the programs described in this book, with existing litterature and forthcoming ones (Salyut and Skylab). Color plates showing the evolution of the construction of the ISS is a nice addition.

posted April 15, 2008 04:06 PM            

Jay, good luck with your book. Mine was not meant to be a very in-depth coverage, as can be seen by its length, but perhaps the first to contain all aspects of Manned Space Stations, those that flew, and those that didn't. I too included ASTP and other mission that were not strictly speaking Space Stations, such as the Soyuz 4 and 5 docking, in an effort to show the progression towards the permanent manned outpost of today. In the same vein I included Spacelab, and Polyus.

I believe that a book with an in-depth human interest side to it on this subject is overdue, and I wish you well with it.

posted June 14, 2009 05:39 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by pbaker:
Jay, good luck with your book.

---

posted November 19, 2009 02:04 AM               

Last month I did my second major research trip to Houston. Half that time was spent at JSC conducting interviews and visiting some of the places on site responsible for ISS support. The other half was spent at the University of Houston Clear Lake campus digging through the NASA archives for information about Skylab, ASTP and early shuttle. I must say, I found some good stuff there. To any other researcher, the archives are a really good resource of primary research material and the staff on hand of Shelly Kelly and Jean Grant are ready, willing and able to provide assistance as needed.

I also took a side trip to KSC to watch Ares 1-X fly. Granted I know any coverage of Ares 1-X and Constellation in my book will be only a few paragraphs at most, but I felt it was best to get some first hand data on how it performed.