Another pick of The Planetary Society Book Club – this for April 2024. As the cover states, this book features firsthand astronaut accounts from all 135 missions. It’s loaded with photos too!
Space Shuttle Stories
Author: Tom Jones
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Originally Published: October 31, 2023
Publisher: Smithsonian Books
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: May 18, 2024
My rating: 
Thoughts
I’m so glad this was a Book Club pick because otherwise it probably would have flown completely under my radar!
For each mission, you get crew photos as well as nice shots taken (in most cases) by the astronauts themselves while on the mission.
The stories are obviously what make this book what it is. For most missions, you actually get multiple firsthand stories. Tom Jones (the astronaut, but it’s not unusual for you to think of a different Tom Jones) put together a great piece of space memorabilia that will live on forever.
If they aren’t already, they should do something like this for all space mission. (Note: I’m not sure who “they” is. The Smithsonian? At any rate, “they” should really get on this.)
As most people are aware, there were two Space Shuttle tragedies: Challenger and Columbia. The stories from those missions were quite touching and a nice tribute to the crews we lost.
I wish this had more about the International Space Station, but I suppose that was really out of the scope of this book. And really, I can’t fault the book for that.
If you’re a space enthusiast and lived through the age of the Space Shuttle, you should definitely check this book out. I gave it a strong 5 out of 5 stars; it was just so great to hear about all these missions from the people who were there!
