This week was spring break. Between getting ready to move into my new home next week and my part time job, I was able to dig into a copy of "We Seven", by "The Astronauts". It was a prop in a model home in a development that my girlfriend's employer is selling and I BEGGED one of "the bosses" to let me have it.

What a GREAT frikkin' read! I've admitted this before: I once stole "Gemeni!" (written by Gus) from my high school library. Gus Grissom is My Hero (WWGD?). That was my favorite book until it got destroyed while PCS'ing once. "We Seven" will be "Gemeni!"'s replacement.

"We Seven" covers everything from the selection of the original 7 up until Gordo's flight, written in the words of The Original 7, with minimal comment from The Editor. It doesn't cover every flight in detail, and I'm sure the Time/Life editors had much to say as to the wording the men used, but to read what had to be said in the words of the men who LIVED it.............. an understated inspiration for an engineering student. It was especially interesting to read stuff from Scott, Deek and Gordo; you don't usually hear much from those three.

A plug for Gus...

I read once, in the words of someone "close to the situation", that Gus had been promised by Deek that he was Numero Uno for the moon. If this was true, it would serve as a tribute to the fact that Gus was often referred to as "The Astronaut's Astronaut", and that the insiders really DID acknowledge that Liberty Bell 7 was a fluke. (Of course, recent investigation has at least hinted that it really WAS a fluke.)

It's a shame that Apollo 1 burned. The loss of life in accidents is often written off as a gain as a lesson learned that will save lives later on... I sure would like to have seen Gus step onto Mare Tranquillitatis.

MrPex