wide exploration? Earth-orbit rendezvous vs. Mott and Kolff violently argue about goals and methods. After debate, space-program control is given to NASA. In the early '50s, however, Mott is removed from the program (he switches to the embryonic NASA, studies celestial mechanics and ablation) the three major military branches feud about space-program control and Ike's Defense Secretary virtually calls off all rocketry plans. Norman Grant, a WW II hero on the Senate's space committee. And, meanwhile, we also meet future astronaut John Pope, a brainy, "straight arrow" Navy test pilot (with raunchy Korea buddy, Marine Randy Claggett) whose lawyer-wife Penny is a vital aide to stolid Sen. So Mott, with wife Rachel, oversees the research program once the Germans are resettled in Alabama. In 1944 US engineer Stanley Mott is the man responsible for locating and secretly rescuing Germany's top rocket scientists: the real-life von Braun (a background figure here) as well as the fictional Dieter Kolff, who manages to sneak out of Germany with formulas for long-range rocketry.
And those put off by Tom Wolfe's jivey, semi-hostile approach in The Right Stuff will certainly prefer Michener's more positive (though not uncritical) view of the astronaut program. Others, however, may appreciate the close-up focus-the same handful of central characters for 640 pp.-or the relatively in-depth treatment of the science/issues involved.
America's space program, from WW II roots to the 1980s, is the subject of Michener's new mega-faction-so those readers who relished the dynasty/historical-romance aspects of his multi-century epics (Chesapeake, The Covenant, etc.) are likely to be disappointed by the smaller scope and quieter action here.
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