Moon Shot: A NASA Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible by Mike Massimino

This book is an excellent combination of memoir and motivational writing. Mike applied to be a NASA astronaut three times, and failed. The third time he was close, but his vision wasn’t quite good enough. He was prescribed eye exercises by an optometrist, and managed to get accepted. Then he found out he needed to pass a long-distance swim test and a lifesaving test, and Mike didn’t swim as well as his 3-year-old. When he became part of the Astronaut Candidate group in 1996, he learned that a large part of their training was about team work, so the stronger swimmers spent time giving tips to Mike and the other weak swimmers.

Massimino, a mechanical engineer nicknamed Mass, was on two space shuttle missions to repair the Hubble telescope. His first trip to space was on Columbia, 11 months before its terrible accident. Mike writes about being a CapCom, talking with the astronauts stranded on the International Space Station after the Columbia accident, checking on their families, and talking them through basic station maintenance, as if they were doing weekend chores back home. He learned from astronauts like Alan Bean, who flew to the moon in Apollo 12. Some of his lessons from NASA that can apply to anyone’s life include: be amazed, build trust, accept ideas from your whole team, go slow and don’t make your mistakes worse. Ask for help, and learn from your mistakes. There are funny scenes and dramatic moments, in a compelling read from from someone who clearly loved working for NASA. Mike later appeared as himself on The Big Bang Theory, and is now a professor and public speaker.

Brenda