Pioneering Space: Living on the Next Frontier

James Oberg (Red Star in Orbit, Mission to Mars, etc.) is a spaceflight engineer at Houston Mission Control; Alcestis Oberg is the author of Spacefarers of the 80s and 90s. Here they offer an engrossing and vivid account of what life is like in an earth-orbiting spacecraft. Because relatively few American space-travelers have published tales of their experiences, the Obergs lean heavily on the diaries and memoirspublished in Russia and little known hereof pioneering Soviet astronauts, notably veterans of long-term Salyut missions like Ryumin and Berezovoy. Here is the human side of life in orbit. Few readers can fail to be grippedand occasionally amusedby revelations of the immediate problems (how astronauts contend with toilets, hygiene, sleeping), their technical perils (e.g., air contamination) and the psychological hazards they face, from crewmate incompatibility to depression and homesickness for Earth. Photos. January 27