The subject book by Scott Kelly, twin brother of Mark Kelly, who is the husband of Gabby Giffords the US Congresswoman injured in a shooting while Scott was in space on a previous mission to the "year in space" that the book is mostly based on.
The book is a fine book for space nerds like me, likely a bit on the dryish side for "normal humans" -- it IS NOT in any way competition for "Endurance" about the Shackelton voage -- a far more gripping tale. It you are picking an "Endurance", pick that one! Kelly kept a copy of the Shackelton book with him on the ISS.
The short item from the book that I will likely remember longest is the answer given to the 20 person astronaut review board when they asked former Navy SEAL Bill Shepherd what he could do better than any person in the room. "Kill people with my knife" was his very true, however somewhat unexpected answer.
The longer memorable part for me is a part that leads me to believe that Russians are on the way to winning the next round in global dominance -- unless the Chinese do. I've always admired a lot of things about Russians -- it was COMMUNISM that I've always hated.
The flight out from Star City to Baikonur where the launches take place is a drunken party -- they know the guys going up are going to be unable to party for quite awhile, so they make up for it on earth. As they go out to the launch pad, the bus with the astronauts stops about a mile from the pad and all the astrnauts / cosmonauts get out and pee on the rear tire -- because Yuri Gagarin did that before his first launch, and since he was successful, it must be good luck!
In the US, there are no people allowed within 3 miles of the pad when the rocket is fueled, however in Russia, 100's of people are milling around -- including some smoking. One blew up in the sixties killing 100's, and they never changed the policy -- people like to watch the launches close up, there is risk involved, what is the problem?
My point here is that Russians seem to still be connected with tradition and even superstition -- the good sense that there is likely to be MUCH more about our universe than we understand, as well as some concept that life is short no matter what you do -- enjoying a space launch up close MIGHT be your last act on earth, however no matter what you do, you will be dead WAY more than you will be alive! Somewhere down that path -- realizing that risk is always inherent with life and certainly with reward, and that taking risks is often WORTH IT, is what makes countries move forward vs degenerating into tribes fighting over diminishing scraps of physical nothing without even a clue that they have killed the spirit in which lies all hope!
As is typical for me in a book like this, I enjoyed the detailed aspects of Kelly's life as an F15 pilot, test pilot and shuttle pilot very much -- however those were a small part of the book. Lots of detail about life aboard the ISS, especially co2 levels which seems to be a pet peeve of Kelley.
If you are a flight / space nerd, you will like it.
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