Book review by Keith Cowing, Editor, NASA Watch

"Can't we just get along?" asked Rodney King amid the L.A. Riots. As you become engulfed in the portrayal of the Shuttle-Mir program outlined in this book, you half expect someone to jump up and say exactly the same thing.

This book chronicles the lives of the people who endeavored to make the Shuttle-Mir program work. It sweeps through the lives of those who stayed behind as well as those who went to Mir. In so doing, the author has managed to weave a series of interviews, news reports, air-to-ground transmissions, and Congressional testimony into a compelling story - one which is hard to put down. The author is so adept at his craft that you often get the feeling that he is recollecting events instead of re-telling them. That alone makes this book worth reading.

If there is one message this book leaves with the reader it is that technology is not the main challenge to space exploration today. Rather, it is the human factor. It is about the ability (or lack thereof) of people to get along with each other - and to be honest with each other in their working relationships. It is also about the awful consequences of not considering the human element of space operations i.e. depressed, isolated, over-worked, and scared people make mistakes. And finally, it is about the collision of culture and politics in the final frontier and the consequences that result when technical decisions are made for political reasons and political decisions are made for technical reasons.

Strangely enough, throughout this book, one of the few people who come across as having any real grasp of what was broke amidst the human element on Earth or in space - or how to fix the situation - was Al Holland, Johnson Space Center's chief psychologist. Holland is portrayed as doing his best to help everyone cope - even when his help (and the obvious problems he cites) was not always welcome.

What is truly astonishing is how ill prepared both America and Russia were to implement the Shuttle-Mir program. As the book unfolds it becomes painfully clear how little America knew about Russian spacecraft or operations and how misinformed Russia was about the expectations NASA had for their $400 million payment. As such, both countries rushed head on to make the agreement work and immediately encountered problems.

All of the familiar faces appear in this book - the astronauts, the NASA managers, and the politicians. But there are also people portrayed in this book that the general public has never heard of. Perhaps the most interesting is Johnson Space Center Director George Abbey whom Burrough describes:

"Abbey is regarded by many as the J. Edgar Hoover of NASA, a mysterious figure shrouded in myth and legend. Astronauts whisper about the file he is said to keep on every center employee. A thick green binder he totes to meetings is regarded as a source of secrets on a par with Pandora's box. Among the astronauts and the hundreds who support them, it is axiomatic that it is Abbey who actually runs NASA, not the bubbly Administrator Daniel S. Goldin who spends his days in far-off Washington glad-handing politicians and flattering the poor, hapless Russians."

As Burrough weaves his tale, the pervasive power held by Abbey, one that can easily extend off of this planet, becomes eerily evident. This man who is almost unknown outside of Houston, much less NASA, is shown to have deftly exerted his interests in the White House as well as among the Astronaut corps. Much of what NASA does - and how it does it - clearly relates back to George Abbey's vision of how things should be done. Abbey's influence within NASA is so pervasive that Burrough quotes former NASA Administrator and astronaut Dick Truly as saying "The real book about manned space program would be a book about George Abbey". The extraordinary efforts taken by some to stay in Abbey's good graces, and the career limiting consequences of straying from his wishes, are chronicled in detail never before published. This information alone is reason to recommend this book to anyone interested in how NASA really works.

As other individuals enter the picture, Dan Goldin, Yuri Koptev, politicians, the crews, etc. it becomes painfully obvious that so many of the problems associated with the relationship between America and Russia come down to one simple factor: human ego. These egos all fuel private agendas which are not always in synchrony with those of their superiors - or their new found partners. Yet everyone is duty bound to make things work with orders issued from above. Small wonder that the Shuttle-Mir program, and the International Space Program growing up in parallel, are beset with such constant turmoil.

Just as spacecraft collide in this book, so do cultures. The Russians are seen by many Americans as brutish, sexist, and in some extreme cases downright uncaring. Indeed, Burrough quotes Jim Van Laak, Frank Culbertson's deputy as saying that "the Russians simply don't place as high a premium on human life as we do". The Russians are often cited as seeing more than their share of the "ugly American" syndrome wherein NASA folks show up on Russian soil expecting all of the comforts of home and acting as the senior partner in the Shuttle Mir endeavor by virtue of having paid for services.

One of the key problems fueling this cultural collision is language. Again and again this book shows that the better one's ability to speak Russian, the better the communication. The better the communication, the more one comes to understand the culture. And while this cultural understanding may not result in acceptance, it certainly arms one with the ability to adapt to the culture. Those Americans and Russians who took the time to understand the other derived clear benefit. Those who did not came to regret the situation.

Rifts between individuals from the same country were common, often with language at the heart of the problem. According to Burrough, there were periods of time when astronauts Norm Thagard and Bonnie Dunbar would not even talk to each other even thought they sat side by side in classes in Star City. Thagard did well with his good Russian, derived from lessons he paid for when NASA refused to. Dunbar's skills were lacking and she relied on Thagard to translate her classes for her. When they stopped talking to each other, Dunbar lost her interpreter. Hardly the best way to facilitate learning.

Chronic turmoil within the Mir crews is portrayed with multiple incidences cited wherein Americans and Russians don't even speak or share meals with one another for long periods of time. Lack of language skills by some astronauts caused these situations to worsen. These human problems are exacerbated when life-threatening collisions, fires, and life support failures push crews to the limit.

There was more to the culture clash than just language. How both countries actually "do" space operations is wholly different. The American approach is to give crews considerable on-orbit autonomy with a strong safety net of support on the ground. The Russian approach places the crew subordinate to ground control on almost every issue but expects the crew to figure things out on their own once given instructions. The Russian approach has allowed the cosmonaut corps to become very adept at seat of the pants repairs while Americans are portrayed as depending on books to get them out of a repair situation. Although not mentioned in this book, I can recall hearing a JSC scientist presenting the contrast as follows: "Americans are astonished at how much information is in one Russian's head while Russians are astonished at how much paper an American needs to go through to get a simple answer."

Since these two approaches tend to encourage opposite modes of behavior within space crews, the addition of politics, accidents, and egos often leads to some truly dysfunctional space exploration. What is astonishing to me is how these people risked their lives in space on numerous occasions and yet, their experiences and needs were utterly unappreciated - or even deliberately ignored by ground personnel. Some fault must be placed on the crew who are portrayed as often trying to limit the amount of bad news beamed down from space.

Despite the abundant chronicling of human weaknesses, there is abundant heroism portrayed in this book too. And it is clearly demonstrated by the crews of Mir as they deal with the collision and the fire and the immense amount of cobbling together of broken life support systems. There is also a heroic spirit evidenced among many of the folks in the trenches trying to implement often impossible tasks keeping their eye on the prize as they do.

As the book closes, Burrough cites a complaint I have heard all too often. Despite all of the public pronouncements that lessons learned about Mir will benefit the International Space Station program, the ISS crowd doesn't want to listen, much less learn from the wealth of hard-won experience gained on both sides. If we're not careful we're going to stumble into these very same problems again.

The biggest challenge lying ahead as we reach out to explore space will not be hardware. Rocket Science is easy. Rather, the biggest problem everyone will have to surmount is how to work together in space. A real lesson has been learned from the Shuttle-Mir program. Alas, this is a lesson that NASA, with its ingrained engineering mentality, has a problem admitting - or confronting since it is so hard to quantify. Hopefully this book will help spread the lesson wider within NASA than might otherwise be the case.

Political agendas and human egos are thoroughly embedded in the very fabric of the Space Station program. As such, it is impossible to fully understand how NASA and its partners will build and operate the International Space Station without first understanding the weaknesses and the strengths of the people involved. This wonderfully crafted book takes an unprecedented look into the human aspect of exploring space and should be required reading for anyone trying to understand - or explain - how it will be done.