Author Description

The Real Space Cowboys tells the story of America's Mercury 7 astronauts, who volunteered to be the first to explore the unknown perils of spaceflight beginning in the late 1950s. Detailed interviews with the Mercury 7--Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton--provide a first-hand account at the competition, controversies, training, and hard work that took them a step beyond their former lives as cocky military pilots. The book also tells the story of the twelve brave Moonwalkers who actually landed on the Moon, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket scientists who developed the technology to propel men and materials into space, the Russian Cosmonauts and Chinese Taikonauts who helped fuel the competitive space race, plus humorous stories about the pranks and goofs the Mercury 7 enjoyed to pull on each other.