GEMINI

Gus Grissom wrote this book (completed shortly before his death) for his children so that when they were old enough to really understand they would know ""just what sort of wild and wonderful enterprise their father was lucky enough to have a part of fulfilling."" He briefly tells his own life story (Indiana boyhood, marriage to a highschool sweetheart, the Air Force and one hundred combat missions in Korea) before joining the Mercury program (he was ""invited"") and subsequently Gemini. By way of backstopping his description of space flights, he gives a nod to the people on the ground, to the space ships themselves, tells what it means to be a ""chaperone"" or to further ""the state of the art."" On to the developmental, long duration and rendezvous-and-docking missions with colleagues such as John Young, who smuggled him a corned beef sandwich. Grissom admits he is more at home with technical reports than with lyrical prose necessary to transmit the beauty of the view of entire continents in passing, says ""You'll just have to take my word for it."" That's about the size of it; the man himself was something else. His name assures a take-off to a non-reading readership.