The All-American Boys: An Insider's Candid Look at the Space Program and the Myth of the Super Hero.
New York: Macmillan, 1977. First Printing of the First US Edition. A Very Good copy with a small scuff to the front board with the boards bound upside down in a Very Good unclipped dust jacket with one short tape-repaired edge tear. Cunningham was a member of the Apollo 7 crew that mapped future landing sites for the first moon landing in 1969. On October 11, 1968, he occupied the lunar module pilot seat for the eleven-day flight of Apollo 7 - the first manned flight test of the third generation United States spacecraft. With Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and Donn F. Eisele, Cunningham participated in and executed maneuvers enabling the crew to perform exercises in transposition and docking and lunar orbit rendezvous with the S-IVB stage of their Saturn IB launch vehicle; completed eight successful test and maneuvering ignitions of the service module propulsion engine; measured the accuracy of performance of all spacecraft systems; and provided the first effective television transmission of onboard crew activities. The 263-hour, four-and-a-half million mile shakedown flight was successfully concluded on October 22, 1968, with splashdown occurring in the Atlantic - some eight miles from the carrier ESSEX (only 3/10 of a mile from the originally predicted aiming point).He provides an inside look at the making and unmaking of America's astronaut corps. This copy is signed: "Walter Cunningham Apollo 7" Item #21796
ISBN: 0025292404
Price: $225.00 save 20% $180.00