Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965

I am an Apollo astronaut who entered the space program in 1966, and I knew and worked with most of the Americans that are profiled in this book. In the intervening years I have met most of the Russians also profiled. I was in the space business for many years, including making a flight to the moon on Apollo 15 in 1971, ten years after Alan Shepard made his historic flight. This book is a wonderful history of the original pioneers in space. I could not put it down once I started. French and Burgess have a great touch when it comes to writing. I found it especially interesting when reading about the Russian program and the men and women selected for their spaceflights. The book clearly and engrossingly explains the differences between the Russian Cosmonauts and the American Astronauts, including fascinating personal details of how they were selected, trained and carried on their flights. I found the book a great source of new information that was both well documented and thoroughly fascinating to read - in fact, I believe it is deserving of winning some awards. Before I flew in space, these men and women in America and Russia paved the way and were my personal heros. If you want to know who they were, then this is the book.

Writing this book, really, would not have been an enviable task. Yes, it would be a fun sandbox to play in, and, yes, it would be very cool to get to talk to the people you would have to interview to write the book. But, it's been done, you know? The Gemini period perhaps a bit less so, but how many books and movies and documentaries have covered the Mercury and Apollo programs? Were it me, I'd rather tread ground a little more fresh. But the great thing about Silent Sea is that it is, in fact, fresh. For the people who are relatively new to these stories, it's a wonderful introduction. To say that it's thorough is putting it lightly. Yes, the Mercury program is covered completely. The book includes everything you need to know. And it's told in a way that's interesting not only to a technical crowd but also to a lay audience, because, ultimately, Silent Sea is the story of the people who lived the history. These people who have become legends, after all, were people. Where did they come from? What were they like as children? How did they get to the point where they were making history? What was the experience like for them? What was it like living with having done something so exceptional? With the aforementioned thoroughness, Silent Sea paints portraits of the individuals behind the history. Silent Sea is unusual, as well, in that it's not a history of the Mercury program. It's a history of human spaceflight from 1961 through 1965, regardless of where those humans were from. The U.S. and Soviet programs are covered in a combined chronological account, presenting the stories side-by-side as two components of one historical period. As a result, even for someone who is fairly well-versed in the history of NASA spaceflight, Silent Sea is an extremely informative volume, filling in the gaps from the far side of the Iron Curtain. Even in telling the more familiar stories, however, Silent Sea keeps it fresh. No matter how many times a reader has heard these stories, they haven't been told in quite this way before. Yes, the major events are covered in detail, but they're shown as seen through different eyes, people like Dee O'Hara and Wally Funk. If you know who those people are, you know why you need to read the book. If you dont know who those people are, that is why you need to read the book.

I have over one hundred books on the American and Russian space programs but I really enjoyed this book which is one of the few to go inside the usual facade of space stories and tell the human side of these great adventures. The honest comments about the feelings of the people from that time (their hopes, fears etc.) as they accomplished what the rest of us can only dream about are unusual and in my mind priceless. The writing style is easy to read and not obstructed by excess technical jargon. Overall this is an excellent book - highly recommended.

This book is just plain terrific! It is beautifully written and the attention to detail is impressive. It is packed with information and facts not generally known. The authors writing style is easy to read and the facts are told in a very straight-forward manner. I loved that they cleared up many untruths about the Grissom and Carpenter fights. It is evident the authors had no hidden agenda and I found that very refreshing. I especially enjoyed the in-depth stories regarding the russian missions. Really, really good!! This book was definitely a "trip down memory lane" for me and I loved it. I can't wait until the next one in this series comes out. If you are a space fan - you will love this book.

I grew up in the American manned space program so tend to be somewhat jaded by some of the "outsider" accounts of what went on in the early years. But this book was full of pleasant surprises with both lesser-known facts about the well-recognized astronauts and detailed important information about the lesser-known, such as the cosmonauts and those who wanted to become astronauts. The book humanized the Russian program as well as our own. This is the first social history of that narrow time frame that I have seen. There were enough engineering facts to make sense out of what was going on at the time, but focused more on the personal lives of the trailblazers and the impact they made on society. I would highly recommend this to space buffs, historians and sociologists. I was especially interested in the cosmonaut stories and the chapter about the two Wallys.