Contemporary Authors

• Apollo Pilot: The Memoir of Astronaut Donn Eisele ( edited by Francis French and author of foreword) University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2017

https://lccn.loc.gov/2016027504 Eisele, Donn, 1930-1987. Apollo pilot : the memoir of astronaut Donn Eisele / Donn Eisele ; edited and with a foreword by Francis French ; afterword by Susie Eisele Black ; historical overview by Amy Shira Teitel. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2017] xv, 143 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. TL789.85.E37 E37 2017 ISBN: 9780803262836 (cloth : alk. paper)

• Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donn_F._Eisele

  Donn F. Eisele
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  Donn F. Eisele
  Eisele donn.jpg
  NASA astronaut
  Nationality American
  Born June 23, 1930
  Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
  Died December 2, 1987 (aged 57)
  Tokyo, Japan
  Resting place
  Arlington National Cemetery [1][2]
  Other names
  Donn Fulton Eisele
  Other occupation
  Test pilot
  Alma mater
  USNA, B.S. 1952
  AFIT, M.S. 1960
  Rank Colonel, USAF
  Time in space
  10d 20h 08m
  Selection 1963 NASA Group 3
  Missions Apollo 7
  Mission insignia
  AP7lucky7.png
  Retirement June 1, 1970
  Awards Dfc-usa.jpg Distinguished Flying Cross
  NASA Exceptional Service Medal
  AIAA Haley Astronautics Award
  National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Special Trustees Award
  NASA Distinguished Service Medal.jpg NASA Distinguished Service Medal (posthumously)
  Donn Fulton Eisele (June 23, 1930 – December 2, 1987),[3] (Col, USAF), was a United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and later a NASA astronaut. He occupied the Command Module Pilot seat during the flight of Apollo 7 in 1968. After retiring from both NASA and the Air Force, he became the Peace Corps country director for Thailand, before moving into private business.[3]

  Contents [hide]
  1 Biography
  1.1 Early life and education
  1.2 Flight experience
  1.3 NASA career
  1.4 Post-NASA career
  1.5 Death
  2 Organizations
  3 Awards and honors
  4 Legacy
  5 See also
  6 References
  7 External links
  Biography[edit]
  Early life and education[edit]
  Eisele was born June 23, 1930 in Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from West High School in 1948. He received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1952, and chose a commission in the United States Air Force (the U.S. Air Force Academy graduated its first class in 1959). Eisele received a Master of Science degree in Astronautics from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, in 1960.

  Flight experience[edit]
  Following his graduation from Annapolis, and joining Air Force, Eisele went to flight training at Goodfellow AFB, Texas, Williams AFB, Arizona, and Tyndall AFB, Florida. After receiving his wings in 1954, Eisele served at Wheelus Air Base, Libya, from 1954 to 1956. He attended and graduated from the Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class 62A) at Edwards Air Force Base, California in 1961. Eisele was a project engineer and experimental test pilot at the Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. He flew experimental test flights in support of special weapons development programs.

  He logged more than 4,200 hours flying time, 3,600 of which were in jet aircraft.[3]

  NASA career[edit]
  Main article: Apollo 7

  Eisele prior launching of Apollo 7

  The Apollo 7 crew: Eisele (l.), Wally Schirra (c.), and Walter Cunningham (r.)

  Barbara Eden, Bob Hope, the Apollo 7 astronauts, and Paul Haney (voice of Mission Control) on The Bob Hope Show (November 6, 1968)
  Eisele was part of NASA's third group of astronauts, selected in October 1963. In early 1966, Eisele was quietly selected as Pilot for the Apollo 1 crew, along with Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom and Senior Pilot Edward H. White. But after dislocating his shoulder twice during training, Eisele was replaced with Roger B. Chaffee. After corrective surgery in January 1966, Eisele was named to the crew for the second manned Apollo flight, with Command Pilot Walter "Wally" Schirra and Pilot R. Walter Cunningham. At this time, Eisele was promoted to the Senior Pilot position.[4]

  But as the launch date approached, his participation was at risk, due to Eisele's involvement in an extramarital affair with a woman who would later become his second wife.[5] Astronaut Office Chief Deke Slayton had warned the crew that they were all "expendable", and that any extramarital affairs must not become public.[5]

  Eisele remained in the crew, and on October 11, 1968, Eisele was launched on the 11-day flight of Apollo 7 – the first manned flight test of the third generation United States spacecraft. By this time, the Senior Pilot title was changed to Command Module Pilot. Together with spacecraft commander Schirra and Lunar Module Pilot Cunningham, Eisele performed simulated transposition and docking maneuvers with the upper stage of their Saturn IB launch vehicle, and acted as navigator, taking star sightings and aligning the spacecraft's guidance and navigation platform. The crew completed eight successful test firing maneuvers of the Service Module's propulsion engine. They also tested the performance of all spacecraft systems, and broadcast the first live televised coverage of crew activities.

  Apollo 7 was placed in an Earth-orbit with an apogee of 153.5 nautical miles (284.3 km; 176.6 mi) and perigee of 122.6 nautical miles (227.1 km; 141.1 mi).[3] The 260-hour, four-and-a-half million mile (7.25 Gm) shakedown flight was successfully concluded on October 22, 1968, with splashdown occurring in the Atlantic, eight miles (15 km) from the carrier USS Essex and only 0.3 miles (0.48 km) from the predicted target.[3] Eisele logged 260 hours in space.[3]

  Eisele served as backup Command Module Pilot for the 1969 Apollo 10 flight. He was excluded from Apollo 13 because of his reluctance to interrupt their tests aboard Apollo 7 for public television coverage NASA requested, and for the extramarital affair that had almost caused his replacement. Eisele resigned from the Astronaut Office in 1970 and became technical assistant for manned spaceflight at the NASA Langley Research Center, a position he occupied until retiring from both NASA and the Air Force in 1972.

  Post-NASA career[edit]
  In July 1972, Eisele became Country Director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Thailand. Returning from Thailand two years later, he became Sales Manager for Marion Power Shovel, a division of Dresser Industries.[3] Eisele then handled private and corporate accounts for the investment firm of Oppenheimer & Company. He also participated in the 1986 Concorde Comet Chase flights out of Miami and New York.

  Death[edit]
  Eisele died at the age of 57 of a heart attack while on a 1987 business trip to Tokyo, Japan, where he was to attend the opening of a new Space Camp patterned on the one at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Eisele was cremated in Japan, and his ashes were buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

  Organizations[edit]
  Eisele was an Eagle Scout, a member of Tau Beta Pi, and a Freemason, belonging to Luther B. Turner Lodge # 732 in Columbus, Ohio.[6][3]

  Awards and honors[edit]
  Among the honors he received during his career were the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, the Air Force Senior Pilot Astronaut Wings, and the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross. He was a co-recipient of the AIAA 1969 Haley Astronautics Award and was presented the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Special Trustees Award in 1969.[3]

  In 2008, NASA posthumously awarded Eisele the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his Apollo 7 mission.[7]

  Legacy[edit]
  A family-approved account of Donn Eisele's life appears in the 2007 book In the Shadow of the Moon. Eisele's posthumously discovered memoir Apollo Pilot was published by University of Nebraska Press in 2017.[8][9]

  In the 1998 HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Eisele was portrayed by John Mese. In the final three episodes of the 2015 ABC television series The Astronaut Wives Club, Eisele was portrayed by Ryan Doom.

  Susan Eisele Black donated a sample of a Moon rock to Broward County Main Library on behalf of her late husband, on October 23, 2007. Broward County Library, located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is the only library in the United States to have a lunar rock on display. The moon rock is exhibited at science museums and schools.[10]

• NASA - https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/eisele-df.html

  Skip the biography headerNASA Logo National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
  Houston, Texas 77058
  Biographical Data

  Donn Eisele (NASA Photo S64-31469)
  DONN F. EISELE (COLONEL, USAF, RET.)
  NASA ASTRONAUT (DECEASED)

  PERSONAL DATA: Born in Columbus, Ohio, on June 23, 1930. Died on December 2, 1987 of a heart attack while on a business trip to Tokyo, Japan. He is survived by his wife Susan and their two children. Colonel Eisele had four children from a previous marriage.

  EDUCATION: Graduated from West High School, Columbus, Ohio; received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1952 and a Master of Science degree in Astronautics in 1960 from the Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

  ORGANIZATIONS: Member of Tau Beta Pi, National Engineering Society.

  SPECIAL HONORS: Received the NASA exceptional Service Metal, Air Force Senior Pilot Astronaut Wings, Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross; co-recipient of the AIAA 1969 Haley Astronautics Award; presented National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Special Trustees Award in 1969.

  EXPERIENCE: Eisele graduated from the United States Naval Academy and chose a career in the Air Force. He is also a graduate of the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

  He was a project engineer and experimental test pilot at the Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. In this capacity, he flew experimental test flights in support of special weapons development programs.

  He logged more than 4,200 hours flying time—3,600 hours in jet aircraft.

  NASA EXPERIENCE: Eisele was one of the third group of astronauts selected by NASA in October 1963.

  On October 11, 1968, he occupied the command module pilot seat for the eleven-day flight of Apollo VII—the first manned flight test of the third generation United States spacecraft. With spacecraft commander Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and lunar module pilot Walter Cunningham, Eisele 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 transmissions of onboard crew activities.

  Apollo VII was placed in an earth-orbit with an apogee of 153.5 nautical miles and perigee of 122.6 nautical miles; and the 260-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 three-tenths of a mile from the originally predicted aiming point).

  He served as backup command module pilot for the Apollo X flight.

  Colonel Eisele logged 260 hours in space.

  In July 1972, Colonel Eisele retired from the Air Force and left the space program to become Director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Thailand. Upon Returning from Thailand, Eisele became Sales Manager for Marion Power Shovel Company, a division of Dresser Industries. Eisele handled private and corporate accounts for the investment firm of Oppenheimer & Company.

  DECEMBER 1987

• NASA - https://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/oct/HQ_M07137_Eisele_Award.html

  News Releases
  Text Size
  David E. Steitz
  Headquarters, Washington
  202-358-1730
  david.steitz@nasa.gov

  Steve Vinik/Scott Medvin
  Broward County Libraries, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
  954-357-5589/6015
  svinik@broward.org, smedvin@broward.org

  Oct. 18, 2007

  MEDIA ADVISORY : M07-137

  NASA Honors Apollo Astronaut Donn Eisele

  FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - NASA will honor the late astronaut retired Air Force Col. Donn F. Eisele with the presentation of an Ambassador of Exploration Award for his involvement in the U.S. space program. Eisele's wife Susan Eisele-Black will accept the award at 4 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Oct. 23 at the Broward County Library, 100 South Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale. Eisele-Black chose the library as the location to display the award.

  NASA is giving the Ambassador of Exploration Award to the first generation of explorers in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs for realizing America's vision of going to the moon. NASA also is recognizing several other key individuals who played significant roles in the early space programs.

  The award is a moon rock encased in Lucite and mounted for public display as inspiration to a new generation of explorers who will help us return humans to the moon and eventually on to Mars and beyond. The award is part of the 842 pounds of samples collected during the six Apollo lunar expeditions from 1969 to 1972.

  In 1968, Eisele was the command module pilot for the 11-day flight of Apollo VII with fellow astronauts Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and Walter Cunningham. Cunningham is expected to attend Tuesday's ceremony. For Eisele's complete biography, visit:

  http://www11.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/eisele-df.html

  For more information about the Broward County libraries, visit:

  http://www.broward.org/library/welcome.htm

  For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

  http://www.nasa.gov

  - end -

• Popular Science - http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/vintage-space/how-donn-eisele-became-whatshisname-command-module-pilot-apollo-7

  How Donn Eisele Became "Whatshisname," the Command Module Pilot of Apollo 7
  By Amy Shira Teitel December 4, 2013

  Though it was the first manned mission of the program and the was the first to fly after three colleagues were killed in the Apollo 1 fire, Apollo 7 is probably the least well remembered of all Apollo missions. It wasn’t a glamorous flight to the Moon or an exciting test of the exotic lunar module. It was a shakedown cruise of the core Apollo spacecraft, the command and service module (CSM), in Earth orbit. The goal was straightforward: demonstrate that this vehicle was up to the challenge of supporting the demanding lunar landing missions.
  ADVERTISING

  inRead invented by Teads
  The crew is similarly unfamiliar to those who don’t immerse themselves in spaceflight history for both work and pleasure. Commanded by Mercury and Gemini veteran Wally Schirra, rookies Donn Eisele (Command Module Pilot) and Walt Cunningham (Lunar Module Pilot) rounded out the crew. Both were assigned to shakedown flight because Deke Slayton, head of the astronaut office and the man behind crew assignments, felt they were perfectly competent but generally weaker than some of their colleagues. Neither was likely to fly a second Apollo flight; Slayton was planning to transfer both the Apollo Applications Program in short order.

  EISELE'S 1964 ASTRONAUT PORTRAIT.
  NASA
  Eisele joined NASA as part of its third class of astronauts in October of 1963 with a Bachelor of Science degree from the US Naval Academy, a Masters of Science in Astronautics from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and flight experience at the Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base under his belt. But it was a lucky dislocation that landed him a spot on the Apollo 7 crew.

  Eisele was originally assigned to the prime crew of Apollo 1, a shakedown cruise of the Block I CSM. Apollo 2 was, at the time, scheduled as a second Block I CSM flight to carryout any further tests and checks NASA might have missed on Apollo 1. Apollo 3 would debut the Block II CSM, the advanced version that could dock with the lunar module on missions to the Moon. But in the course of training, Eisele twice dislocated his left shoulder in NASA’s hollowed out KC-135, the aircraft flown in parabolas to give astronauts brief periods of weightlessness. The long bone in his upper arm dislocated laterally, and on January 27, 1966, he entered the Methodist Hospital in Houston for surgery. He was expected to make a full recovery, but wouldn’t be fit to fly on Apollo 1. He switched places with Roger Chaffee, becoming the CMP for Apollo 2.
  A year after Eisele’s surgery, a fire on the launch pad killed the Apollo 1 crew and forced NASA to step back, regroup, and addressed the obvious problems with the CSM. By the spring, the agency was getting back on track with unmanned mission on deck and the first manned crew in training. The former Apollo 2 crew of Schirra, Cunningham, and Eisele was reassigned the first flight, Apollo 7.

  EISELE AND THE "WHAT'S HIS NAME?" MUG.
  NASA/RetroSpaceImages.com/collectSPACE.com
  But a nagging shoulder injury wasn’t Eisele's only persistent issue on his path into space. His surname had been mildly problematic as well: no one seemed to know how to pronounce it. Pronounced like “EYE-se-lee,” variations were both abundant and creative, and nothing changed when he joined NASA.

  At one point in Apollo 7’s training, the crew went to NASA’s Michoud facility in Mississippi where the Saturn boosters were being built. Administrator Jim Webb introduced the crew to President Johnson, and when he came to Eisele he stumbled over astronaut’s surname. He pronounced it like “Isell.” From that point on, Schirra decided, Eisele would be known simply as “Whatshisname.”
  When Webb publicly announced the crew’s assignment on May 9, 1967, he pronounced all three surnames correctly. And when the mission launched on October 11, 1968, Eisele’s name was similarly pronounced correctly by both NASA representatives and newscasters. But within the agency, the nickname stuck. The Apollo 7 crew was known to their support and ground crews as “Wally, Walt, and Whatshisname.” And now, photographs from the launch day breakfast with Eisele’s “What’s his name?” mug front and centre will preserve his somewhat unfortunate nickname for the ages.
  _Sources/Further Reading: Donn Eisele's NASA (JSC) Biography; Wally Schirra’s autobiography, “Schirra’s Space;” “Chariots for Apollo” by Brooks, Grimwood, and Swenson, January 27, 1966 press release regarding Eisele’s shoulder injury and surgery; "Deke!," Deke Slayton's autobigraphy written with Michael Cassutt. _

Quote:
the book also suggests his bitterness at
being marginalized in the aftermath of the mission
slim, straightforward addition to the record of space travel.
Donn Eisele, Francis French: APOLLO PILOT
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text: 
Donn Eisele, Francis French APOLLO PILOT Univ. of Nebraska (Adult Nonfiction) 24.95 1, 1 ISBN: 978-0-8032-6283-6
A posthumous memoir gives an unsung astronaut his due.In the annals of manned space flight, Donn Eisele (1930-1987) would seem to be the forgotten man, his name not as recognizable as that of crewmates Wally Schirra and Walt
Cunningham, let alone John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. Yet the author was a member of Apollo 7, the first manned mission in the Apollo program following the tragic launch that had killed their predecessors. Well after his death, his
widow shared some artifacts that included various drafts of a memoir, mainly focusing on his formative experiences in becoming an astronaut and his vivid impressions of the historic mission. Yet the book also suggests his bitterness at
being marginalized in the aftermath of the mission and the tensions between the astronauts and those on the ground, particularly those more concerned with the public image of the space program than with safety. He calls the launch-pad
fire that took the lives of the three original Apollo astronauts “so preventable, so unnecessary—almost criminal.” He presents Schirra as something of a prima donna, but all three crewmembers shared some
suspicion and disdain toward those they felt were more concerned with timetables, budgets, and public image than with sharing responsibility with the astronauts who had more actual experience. Eisele writes of the need to keep the
astronauts’ constant philandering secret and of the willing young women who were passed from one astronaut to the next. As the first astronaut to divorce, shortly after returning from space, he soon realized that he had no
future with NASA. He was “very bitter about his treatment,” according to his second wife, who says that not a single friend from the tightly knit astronaut community attended their wedding. Because astronauts
aren’t necessarily writers, even those with extraordinary experiences have trouble rendering them as more than, “I’m free! I’m floating! What a feeling!” But now those feelings are attached
to a name barely mentioned in historical accounts. A slim, straightforward addition to the record of space travel.
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Donn Eisele, Francis French: APOLLO PILOT." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463215993&it=r&asid=dcd84f220379a3a99dfc232663a09b0b. Accessed 29 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A463215993

"Donn Eisele, Francis French: APOLLO PILOT." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463215993&it=r. Accessed 29 May 2017.

• The Space Review
  http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3132/1
  Word count: 2315

  QUOTE:
  What makes Apollo Pilot particularly interesting is Eisele’s unvarnished assessments of many of the people he worked with at NASA.
  Fortunately, Apollo Pilot gives us at least a partial account of the life and career of one astronaut from the early Space Age who might otherwise be overlooked.
  book cover
  Review: Apollo Pilot

  by Jeff Foust
  Tuesday, January 3, 2017
  Comments (12)
  Bookmark and Share
  Apollo Pilot: The Memoir of Astronaut Donn Eisele
  by Francis French (ed.)
  Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2017
  hardcover, 184 pp., illus.
  ISBN 978-0-8032-6283-6
  US$24.95

  Among the astronauts who flew NASA missions in the race to the Moon in the 1960s, one of the least well known is Donn Eisele. Selected in NASA’s third group of astronauts, he flew on the first crewed Apollo mission, Apollo 7 in October 1968, as the command module pilot. However, Eisele never flew in space again and left NASA a few years later. He died of a heart attack in 1987 before he had the chance, like so many of his fellow astronauts, to publish his memoirs.

  It turns, out, though, that he had started to write them. In the foreword of Apollo Pilot, historian Francis French recalls going though boxes of items that belonged to Eisele at the invitation of his second wife, Susie Eisele Black. Those boxes included a stack of papers. “Leafing through the pages, I realized I had stumbled across a number of typewritten drafts by Donn of an unpublished memoir,” French writes.

  “When he kept a tight grip on the reins his direction was erratic, ambiguous, and arbitrary, and sometimes when we really needed a decision his direction was non-existent,” he wrote of Schirra.
  The book is French’s efforts to construct a memoir out of those materials, an effort that involved challenges both literary—French said there “at least five different drafts” among those documents—and physical, as the text on some papers had faded to the point of being nearly illegible. However, he was able to turn those papers into a coherent, if limited, story of part of Eisele’s life.

  The result is a memoir focused almost exclusively on Eisele’s career as an astronaut. There’s little discussion about his childhood: in less than a page he goes from talking about growing up in Columbus, Ohio, to being in test pilot school and applying to be an astronaut. That initial application failed, but he applied in the next class in 1963 and made the cut.

  Most of the book covers the preparations for, and the flight of, Apollo 7. That mission, the first test of the Apollo spacecraft with a crew on board, became infamous for perceived frictions between the crew, commanded by veteran astronaut Wally Schirra, and ground controllers that effectively ended the careers of Eisele and Walt Cunningham, the third crewmember. The book, though, doesn’t play up such tensions, although Eisele acknowledged “there was a real stink” on the ground when the crew decided not to do a live television broadcast while preparing to rendezvous with their upper stage, out of concerns the broadcast would be distracting, particularly if they had to troubleshoot technical issues with it while also getting ready for the rendezvous.

  Eisele, though, saw that episode as indicative of the broader issues he encountered on the Apollo program. “We were frequently at odds with somebody,” he wrote, including engineers, managers, and doctors, becoming unwilling to trust anyone’s judgment completely, based on past experience when astronauts placed too much trust in them. “Apollo 1 would seem to be a good example of what happens when you do.”

  What makes Apollo Pilot particularly interesting is Eisele’s unvarnished assessments of many of the people he worked with at NASA. That included his Apollo 7 commander, Schirra, who comes off in the book as someone uninterested in the technical details of the mission and more concerned in making himself look good. “When he kept a tight grip on the reins his direction was erratic, ambiguous, and arbitrary, and sometimes when we really needed a decision his direction was non-existent,” he wrote of Schirra, while also acknowledging his charisma and “indomitable sense of humor.”

  His memoirs conclude shortly after the end of the mission, so he does not discuss what happened afterward: his divorce and remarriage that reportedly also kept from getting another flight assignment, and his decision to leave NASA a few years later.
  Others at the agency also don’t come off well. Eisele criticizes Charles Berry, the chief medical officer at the Manned Spacecraft Center, whose “duplicitous and politically motivated behavior engendered mistrust” among Eisele and colleagues. He singled out for blame for the Apollo 1 accident top NASA officials such as George Mueller and Joe Shea, the latter he accuses of a “colossal ego” that interfered with his judgment. Eisele also devotes several pages to the extramarital escapades of astronauts when either in California or Florida, although not naming any individual astronauts.

  Eisele doesn’t discuss his personal life much in the book, only briefly mentioning his first wife and his children in the first few chapters before diving into the details of Apollo 7. His memoirs conclude shortly after the end of the mission, so he does not discuss what happened afterward: his divorce and remarriage that reportedly also kept from getting another flight assignment, and his decision to leave NASA a few years later. Susie Eisele Black (who passed away in 2014) contributed an afterword to the book that fills in some of those details, including how Eisele was ostracized by his fellow astronauts for years because of his divorce, even though his was just the first of many that involved astronauts.

  In that afterword, she adds that she thinks that Eisele would have expanded that fragmentary memoir if he had more time: he was distracted by a number of business pursuits in his post-NASA years, as well as spending two years as a Peace Corps director in Thailand. French acknowledges that, had Eisele taken that time, the final product might have been quite different from the book, including some of the critical accounts of fellow astronauts and others at NASA. Fortunately, Apollo Pilot gives us at least a partial account of the life and career of one astronaut from the early Space Age who might otherwise be overlooked.

  Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

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  Rod Pyle · 20 weeks ago
  Reading this book now, and it's thoroughly engaging. French has done it again. Great review Jeff.
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  +3 Skeptic's avatar
  Skeptic · 20 weeks ago
  In many ways, this is an editor's book as French shaped an incomplete manuscript into a readable, functioning narrative. So hat's off to him.

  Most interesting tidbit in the book is Eisele's account of Wally Schirra pointing the CSM in the wrong direction before retrofire and Eisele gently pointing that mistake out to Wally and in doing so avoiding sending Apollo 7 into a potentially unrecoverable higher orbit instead of reentry.

  How differently would subsequent Apollo flights had been affected had not Eiesle made that save, I wonder?
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  2 replies · active 20 weeks ago
  +3 guest's avatar
  guest · 20 weeks ago
  So how does a veteran astronaut make such a mistake? Did he blame it on his cold?
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  +2 Skeptic's avatar
  Skeptic · 20 weeks ago
  guest asks: "So how does a veteran astronaut make such a mistake?"

  I remember reading someone's observations that there were two types of astronauts---the ones who were intellectually curious about spaceflight, orbital mechanics, lunar geology and the like. And the ones who basically wanted them to tell him where to point the spacecraft, which thruster to fire, and for how long, to just get the job done.

  I think Wally belonged to the latter group. .
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  +3 guest's avatar
  guest · 20 weeks ago
  NASA screwed over the crew of Apollo 7, just like they did with Scot Carpenter in 1962. And Rusty Schweikart from Apollo 9.
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  0 Jared's avatar
  Jared · 20 weeks ago
  “Apollo 1 would seem to be a good example of what happens when you do.” (trust managers and engineers)

  Ouch! My understanding is that the Apollo 1 "plug door", that is, a door that open inward, similar to most airliner doors and the generous use of taffeta Velcro materials in the interior were features both mandated by the astronaut core and NASA.

  The plug door is virtually impossible to open when the inside is at a higher pressure than the outside. A good thing if you are in space with your suit doffed perhaps, but a very bad thing if you have a fire on the inside. The Velcro was certainly convenient to keep all those small indispensable items like pens, flashlights and tools put, but it supplied a source of fuel with a great deal of surface area due to the fluffy nylon fiber construction that burned intensely in the high pressure pure oxygen environment used on that fateful test day.
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  +1 fuddpucker's avatar - Go to profile
  fuddpucker 48p · 20 weeks ago
  I will definitely read this book as I read French's/Worden's book on Al Worden "Falling to Earth" and it's the best book I've ever read about an astronaut.

  Note: I recently read Clayton Anderson's "The Ordinary Astronaut" and I consider this a must read if you're interested in the Shuttle Astronauts. Better than Mullane's "Riding Rockets" by a long shot.

  If anybody has a copy of "Carrying the Fire" and is willing to loan it out please let me know. I hear it's the best Apollo book ever.
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  3 replies · active 20 weeks ago
  0 Skeptic's avatar
  Skeptic · 20 weeks ago
  "If anybody has a copy of "Carrying the Fire" and is willing to loan it out please let me know. I hear it's the best Apollo book ever."

  ---"I never lend books; the only books I have in my library are books others have lent me." --Benjamin Franklin

  Sorry, my copy isn't available for loan, but you surely can find a copy at your public library or they can get you a copy free. Also, Ebay and Amazon surely have copies for sale for not much.

  Carrying the Fire is still the best of the astronaut autobiographies, even after all these years.

  Two other must reads for the Apollo era are Murray&Cox's Apollo: The Race to the Moon and Chaikin's A Man on the Moon.

  The Outward Odyssey Series being edited by French and Colin Burgess are also excellent contributions to space history that are being published by the U of Nebraska Press. I'm told a biography of George Low is in the works for that Series and that should be an interesting read, indeed, as Low was pretty much the Indispensable Man for so many of the decisions and events from Mercury on through to the Shuttle, but sadly, largely forgotten now (he died in 1984). I'm really looking forward to reading that one.
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  Skeptic · 20 weeks ago
  "The Outward Odyssey Series being edited by French and Colin Burgess are also excellent contributions to space history..."

  of which this book is one.

  Sorry meant to include that phrase but forgot...

  wish this commenting software included editing capability...
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  +1 Paul_Scutts's avatar - Go to profile
  Paul_Scutts 74p · 20 weeks ago
  Skeptic, if you create an account with IntenseDebate and logon to comment, you will have the editing capability, at least until someone replies to your comment (which you can receive an e-mail notification when they do). As you can tell, the only downside, IMO, is that it automatically upvote's all your own comments (and I have not been able to find a means to disable that "feature"). Regards, Paul.
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  0 pat b 's avatar
  pat b · 20 weeks ago
  "his divorce and remarriage that reportedly also kept from getting another flight assignment, "

  That whole crew never flew again. Granted Schirra was tired, after a decade of spaceflight, but, Walt Cunningham was new.
  I've heard it attributed to the disputes the crew had with ground.

  I wonder how this book compares with " All American Boys" by Walt Cunningham
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  1 reply · active 20 weeks ago
  0 fuddpucker's avatar - Go to profile
  fuddpucker 48p · 20 weeks ago
  I remember an interview with Flight Director Chris Kraft where he said they'd never go into space again, period.
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• San Diego Union-Tribune
  http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/science/sd-me-astronaut-eisele-20170118-story.html
  Word count: 1222

  QUOTE:
  Apollo 7 was the very first flight of the Apollo program. The next year, America landed on the moon. Perhaps because it was soon overshadowed by those moon missions, it was quickly forgotten. And yet, the first flight of the program that has been the pinnacle of exploration is not only an enormous technological achievement, it was a fascinating human story of bruised egos, disagreements and ultimately the end of Donn’s space career.
  The Guts and Glory of Forgotten Astronaut Donn Eisele
  Gary RobbinsContact Reporter

  His formal titles are space historian and director of education at the San Diego Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park.

  But Francis French is also something of a treasure hunter.

  French sorted through the personal belongings of the late Donn Eisele and found an unpublished memoir written by the Apollo 7 astronaut.

  It was an important discovery: Eisele was the pilot of the first Apollo spacecraft to test the command and service module in space. That 1968 flight helped pave the way for the first Americans to land on the moon. And the Apollo 7 mission was the first to broadcast an astronaut crew at work on live TV.

  French edited Eisele’s memoir and wrote a foreword, producing a book that’s receiving warm reviews from critics.The book is titled, “Apollo Pilot: The Memoir of Donn Eisele.” We recently spoke to him about the endeavor, and the following is an edited version of that conversation:

  Q: It has been almost 50 years since Eisele flew on Apollo 7. Why did you feel the need to tell the story of a man whose life has largely been lost to time?

  A: Precisely because of that, I think. Apollo 7 was the very first flight of the Apollo program. The next year, America landed on the moon. Perhaps because it was soon overshadowed by those moon missions, it was quickly forgotten. And yet, the first flight of the program that has been the pinnacle of exploration is not only an enormous technological achievement, it was a fascinating human story of bruised egos, disagreements and ultimately the end of Donn’s space career.

  Q: Bruised egos and disagreements? Can you provide anecdotes that help us understand what was going on?

  A: It was the first flight after a devastating launch pad fire that killed a crew inside the Apollo spacecraft. This next crew (went) in a newly designed Apollo, but naturally the mood before the flight was somber and tense as the problems with the spacecraft were understood and fixed.

  The commander, Wally Schirra, had announced it would be his last mission — and he was going to do it his way. As such, there was some disagreement during the flight over who called the shots — the spacecraft commander or mission control, and this upset NASA’s carefully crafted image of harmony.

  Not long after the flight, Donn also divorced his wife and almost immediately remarried. This also upset NASA’s image of astronauts as All-American, apple-pie idols. Donn Eisele became a test case to see if you could divorce and still fly in space again. He did not.

  Q: Eisele died in 1987, when you were about 17 years old. Can we assume you never met him, despite your early interest in space flight?

  A: Unfortunately, I never did get to meet him, although I did write him a letter as a teenager. I was fortunate enough to interview every astronaut who was ever on a crew with him — Wally Schirra and Walt Cunningham on Apollo 7, and Gordon Cooper and Ed Mitchell on the Apollo 10 backup crew. Three of those four have since passed away. I also interviewed both of his (Eisele’s) wives and his other fellow astronauts. In doing so, I felt I got the closest I could to knowing what this intriguing man had been like.

  Q. When did you learn that he had an unpublished memoir, and what shape was it in when you first read it?

  A: I wrote a prior book named “In the Shadow of the Moon,” in which I did a chapter about the overlooked Apollo 7 flight, focusing on Donn Eisele, the least-known crew member. In doing so I became good friends with Susie Eisele Black, Donn’s widow, and would stay with her whenever I was in Florida. She suggested I look through a closet filled with family memorabilia.

  Most families have boxes of stuff from prior decades. But when there is an astronaut in the family, it is a little different. These boxes were full of pieces from the spacecraft, plus souvenir items flown in space, awards and many other items from a rich life. Then I came across a stack of typewritten, translucent onionskin sheets and realized I had stumbled across something else: an unpublished memoir draft. It’s somewhat of a cliché to talk about a “lost” manuscript, but that’s essentially what it was.

  Q: Do you remember what went through your mind as you read that memoir?

  A: I had read somewhere years earlier that Donn had written a children’s book, but when I asked Susie about it, she told me that Donn had never finished it. However, I did not know that the draft was sitting in that closet.

  In addition, there were drafts of speeches and other presentations Donn had made, and — most interestingly — a raw, no-holds-barred memoir draft for adults that delved into the anger he had felt at his managers, as well as tales of the illicit things astronauts got up to when the media was not looking. It was a very revelatory look behind the public astronaut image. I asked Susie if she would mind if I tried to work these various drafts into one narrative, and she agreed. When she read the finished result, she told me it was as if her late husband was back from the dead and talking to her.

  When advance copies of the book were shipped, one arrived at the home of one of Donn Eisele’s daughters on her birthday. She told me that it was like getting a final birthday gift from her father.

  The book has been totally a labor of love. No one is making any money from it; the proceeds are going to support a library program in Florida, at a location beloved to the Eisele family.

  Q: What single fact about Donn stands out, above all others? Is there something that really defines him as a person?

  A: He’s a fascinating enigma. He was a lighthearted, easy-going prankster and pun-maker who did not make waves. And yet he became embroiled in two of NASA’s biggest public controversies of the time — a testy crew disagreeing with mission controllers over the radio, and upsetting the public image of astronaut heroes by divorcing. As such, he’d always been an intriguing character to me. To discover his own written thoughts on being put through a crucible of hostility from his bosses and peers was the answer to so many questions I’d had.

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