Book Reviews

Book Reviews

The Impossible Mission that Flew Us to the Moon

By C Fishman

Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 1st Floor, 222 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1X 8HB, UK. 2019. xiii; 483pp. Illustrated. £25. ISBN 978-1-5011-0629-3.

Eugene Cernan, Apollo 17 Mission Commander, makes a short checkout of the Lunar Roving Vehicle during the early part of the first Apollo 17 extravehicular activity at the Taurus-Littrow landing site on 11 December 1972. NASA.

A summer flurry of new Apollo books can be reliably expected to appear in every year ending in a 9. This book belongs to the category that places Apollo in a socio-political context – not just in terms of the Cold War but also domestically, perhaps more so than the grandfather of Apollo books We Reach The Moon (Bantam Books. 1969) by John Noble Wilford. The New York Times put this book on sale only three days after the Apollo 11 splashdown; Fishman’s book – which references Wilford in a meticulous bibliography of nearly 100 pages – appears 50 years later but benefits from hindsight and extensive journalistic experience.

Fishman openly states that his book is a mix of journalism and history; his account is more a reporter’s rather than an astronaut’s or engineer’s. Understandably, the book is written from an American perspective, and contextualises Apollo in terms of Mercury, Gemini, the Shuttle and the ISS, and also describes how the USSR’s Sputnik and Vostok programmes spurred an otherwise ‘not that interested’ President Kennedy into urging a Moon landing ‘before this decade is out’.

Many authors, now as then, address the economic aspects, attacking the huge cost of Apollo. Predictably, Fishman notes the Vietnam War cost the US five times more; however, he startlingly points out that the annual cost of the space programme, even at its height, was the same as the amount the US spent yearly on cigarettes and cigars.

Apollo was revolutionary not just for its technology but its management of it. Spaceflight celebrities are necessarily mentioned – Neil Armstrong and Wernher von Braun to name just two – but the book also mentions unsung individuals whose efforts were just as pivotal, if not life-saving. NASA’s Bill Tindall receives his own chapter, entitled ‘The Man Who Saved Apollo’. This is no exaggeration, having brought MIT’s software down to size (it exceeded memory capacity by 40%) and putting deliveries back on schedule – sobering reading for even modern-day project managers. A faulty abort switch nearly doomed Apollo 14 but was fixed at MIT by Don Eyles (‘longhaired, peace protesting with John Lennon wire glasses’). With its hard-wired code, transmitting a software patch to the spacecraft was impossible; instead Eyles formulated and tested a procedure on MIT’s Lunar Module (LM) simulator in just two hours. Alan Shepard and Ed Mitchell safely landed their LM at Fra Mauro. John Houboult also receives much-deserved coverage. Houboult’s answer to the chapter’s titular question (‘How Do You Fly to the Moon?’) was his oft-ridiculed but finally adopted, Lunar Orbital Rendezvous (LOR) mission mode, which required just one, and not two, of the huge Saturn V launchers per landing (and had no need of the monstrous Nova rocket, whose development would have delayed the landing well into the 1970s).

LOR required a LM, built by Grumman Aircraft. Grumman, the author notes, produced 14 Hellcat fighters daily during WW2 but such was the LM’s complexity that it took a decade to build 14 flight-ready LMs. Yet the LM still had spare capacity: towards the close of both the Moon landings and the book comes the frantic development of the electric lunar rover, designed by General Motors to fold into the LM and built by Boeing. Rover development started late – Apollo 11’s landing was just weeks away – but took a mere 17 months, in time for a first drive on Apollo 15.

By focusing on Apollo, the book inevitably leaves out much material. However, a couple of omissions are surprising. While the book unflinchingly describes the US’s farcical first rocket launches, the impact of the Apollo 1 fire and its fatalities are only briefly touched upon. 

The book makes a few errors (Ed White, for example, wasn’t one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts; Apollo 7 launched on a Saturn 1B, not a Saturn V) but these are forgivable given the highly readable account the author provides.

This is neither an astronaut’s memoir nor a technical overview – there are plenty of those around anyway – but Fishman’s book is still fascinating, and even instructive, half a century since Armstrong’s one small step. Moreover, few authors will tell you how Moondust smells.

Dr Andy Sinharay
MEng ACGI MRAeS

Edited by N Green et al

CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742, USA. 2019. Distributed by Taylor & Francis Group, 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon OX14 4RN, UK. xxi; 400pp. Illustrated. £49.99. [20% discount available to RAeS members via www.crcpress.com using AKQ07 promotion code]. ISBN 978-1-138-61786-5.

EMS helicopter of Global Medical Response. Airbus.

It has been my privilege over the years to review most of the textbooks on aviation and space medicine, the last one being the most recent fifth edition of Ernsting’s Aviation and Space Medicine (reviewed in AEROSPACE February 2017).

To review this new handbook is – to the aviators reading this review – somewhat akin to reading the Pilots Notes to the main aircraft operating manual. By chance I have also been reorganising my library and the other book on the desk is H Graeme Anderson’s Medical and Surgical Aspects of Aviation (London: Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton. 1919). Published exactly 100 years ago, this was the first textbook about aviation medicine. It is about the same size as this new book. The main difference is that the new handbook has so much more information page per page. It has many abbreviations, which can be misleading, as the reader, if not familiar with such terms, has to keep going back to find the description of the abbreviation. This is not so much a criticism but an observation for future editions.

This is not a reading book but one to refer to. It gives excellent guidelines to various problems and conditions. It covers the broad spectrum of our speciality from the ground to outer space. It is not a book to use to make a diagnosis but, if the diagnosis is known, then, it explains, in a brief format, what to do to get a pilot back to flying duties and what medication is permitted. It lists what the aviation regulations are and what an aviation medical examiner does. There are also good instructions and checklists on how to get a passenger/casualty, very ill or otherwise, flown safely back to a full medical facility. The explanations are precise and in a format that will help anyone remember them for future use and reference.

Being a handbook, it obviously cannot contain every bit of information. In the section on protective clothing, no mention was made of Nomex, which has saved countless lives and prevented many serious burns. The fatigue chapter makes no mention of the differences between acute and chronic fatigue. Other readers may also find things missing which might have been expected to be included. If everything is included it becomes a textbook and not a handbook.

Lord Weir in his Introduction to Graeme Anderson’s book a century ago stated this “present work is the first to deal with this new and important branch of medical study, and will serve to stimulate further research into the many and varied problems which still require elucidation.”

I hope that the Handbook of Aviation and Space Medicine will do the same today.

Dr Ian Perry
FRAeS

RAeS members can access an e-Book edition of this title online via the National Aerospace Library’s e-Book service www.aerosociety.com/ebooks 

Third edition Edited by B G Kanki et al

Academic Press, 125 London Wall, London EC2Y 5AS, UK. 2019. lvi; 607pp. £112. ISBN 978-012812995-1.

Rolls-Royce Trent XWB virtual reality engine training. Rolls-Royce.

Kanki, Helmreich and Anca’s book on CRM first published in 2010 reflected a comprehensive review of CRM whose principles originated from a 1979 NASA workshop on Cockpit Resource Management. The book became a valuable resource for many aviators interested in effective communication within the cockpit. In the first edition the authors explored views from experts on the development and integration of CRM into safety and quality assurance as well as showcasing a variety of CRM models. By the second edition the authors had supplemented the basic structure of the book with more case studies and included the newly founded LOFT (Line Oriented Flight Training) concept, as well as cultural aspects of CRM. Having read and used both of these textbooks with aviation students I was delighted to review the third edition of the resource.

This third edition (now edited by Kranki, Anca and Chidester) has been extensively reviewed and updated and reflects advancements made in the conceptual foundation of CRM, as well as five new chapters discussing well-researched methods and approaches to applying CRM in addition to evolving concepts of the future. I was particularly pleased to read chapters by Wayne Martin on individual resilience discussing his research on startle/surprise in unexpected events, including three case studies as illustration, as well as a chapter discussing Safety Management Systems (SMS) which, in light of the regulatory requirement to implement SMS throughout airlines worldwide, is a necessary chapter. Models of SMS are explained but I would have liked to see more ‘how to’s’ and instruction on application.

It was pleasing to see CRM being extended to other disciplines such as cabin crew and ATC but in particular to maintenance which was given some much needed air time with the outstanding researcher Manoj Patankar discussing maintenance resource management for technical operations. It has been recognised that many latent errors sit within a maintenance environment, yet maintenance professionals don’t get the same amount of HF training or emphasis. This is slowly changing, so this chapter is well received.

Hayward, Lowe and Thomas extended the concept of human factors further to other comparable safety-critical industries, such as healthcare, maritime, rail and offshore operations, though I would have liked to see examples – there have been a number of high profile accidents in these industries that could have been expanded on or studied. We get a tantalising glimpse of behavioural markers but little instruction to their usage which would have been good.

LOFT has now been replaced with a chapter by Kotesky, Hagan and Lish on the value of LOS (Line Operations Simulation) as a training strategy, while the book still retains LOSA (Line Operations Safety Audit) as an audit tool for error evaluation. Although scorned by some, LOSA remains an ICAO gold standard for assessing where improvements or changes can be made to increase that safety envelope of flight.

The emergence of cultural issues that reflect aviation safety is explored at length in later chapters that have been updated or replaced, with the future of CRM occupying a complete new final chapter by the authors themselves.

This new edition retains its character of enhancing flight safety by applying CRM principles but has emerged nicely into the new generation of training, as well as the operational and regulatory environments that are continually evolving. The new authors are exciting and give a refreshing perspective which is well researched and presents interesting case studies to illustrate points. New concepts in aviation has been included such as SMS, individual resilience (startle/ surprise), cultural dimensions and maintenance issues, as well as practical applications to enhance learning.

Dr Laurie Earl
MRAeS
Assistant Professor of Human Factors Coventry University

RAeS members can access an e-Book edition of this title online via the National Aerospace Library’s e-Book service www.aerosociety.com/ebooks 

A Tourism Perspective
Edited by A Graham and F Dobruszkes

Elsevier, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, UK. 2019. xxi; 253pp. Illustrated. £95.95. ISBN 978-0-12-812857-2.

Queues at London Luton Airport. oatsy40.

Air Transport: A Tourism Perspective is the first of its kind to bridge this gap by addressing issues and challenges facing commercial air transport, tourism development and competitiveness. It argues on the need of sound research and data collection as necessary condition to improve policy advice and strategic planning for relevant stakeholders.

This book provides a wide collection of works from established scholars and leading experts in air travel, economic planning and geography, with insights from mainly Europe, North America and Australasia. It addresses the complex phenomenon of air travel and tourism through data-driven chapters and case studies across the world. Its longitudinal approach and the insights on future trends and challenges provides valuable food for thought, as well as interesting points of reflection for both academics and professionals.

The core structure of the book is fourfold. The first part (Chapters 2, 3 and 4) provide a rather straightforward appraisal of trends in the demand, reason for flying and likely market saturation. The second part delves into key aspects of air travel, airport and tourism management, including public policy and regulation (Chapter 5) and the potential of self-connectivity in European airports (Chapter 8). Of particular interest for both researchers and airport managers is Chapter 7, which provides interesting methodological observations in the analysis of airport choice among prospective passengers.

The third part of the book presents a handful of interesting observations and conceptual advancements in the study of airport experience (Chapter 13), while the final part addresses the current and potential advancements of integrated strategic planning combining airlines, DMOs and airports (Chapters 15 and 16).

Overall, this edited book considers socio-demographic, political, technological, service and logistic aspects of air travel and tourism and provides a quite overarching appraisal of the phenomenon for managers and professionals to reflect upon.

Alberto Amore
School of Business, Law and Communication Solent University

RAeS members can access an e-Book edition of this title online via the National Aerospace Library’s e-Book service www.aerosociety.com/ebooks

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