In between the perpetual innovation that characterized the ‘Space Race’ and the move towards privatization in recent years, there exists the Shuttle Era, a time when NASA shifted gears from Lunar exploration to routine orbital missions. While the worldwide headlines may have grown more scarce, the technology developed during this era would eventually transform modern society. WONDERS ALL AROUND: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and the First Untethered Flight in Space, by Bruce McCandless III, is an ode to a dedicated father that offers an insider’s look at this unprecedented era of technological advancement.
Bruce McCandless II started with NASA as a capsule communicator back in 1966. Over the course of his two-decade-plus career, McCandless bore witness to a number of changes within the agency and the greater Houston area. From his various roles within the Skylab program in the late seventies to the launching of the Hubble Space Telescope (and the repairs that immediately followed) in 1990, McCandless was a key player every step of the way. Amid a backdrop of what became a transitional phase for the space program, McCandless eventually realized his lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut, culminating in a pair of monumental missions and even participating in the first untethered space flight (utilizing the MMU jet pack). From his time at the Naval Academy during the mid-‘50s to his devastating cancer diagnosis at the age of eighty, McCandless relays his father’s life story with the sort of insider authenticity that only a son can provide. Bruce McCandless II was many things to the world—fighter pilot, engineer, and ultimately an astronaut—but to his son, the man was a loving, devoted father. And while impartiality is often crucial to a good biography, McCandless’s affection for his father adds a much-needed sense of warmth to what might otherwise feel like a dry accounting of one man’s life.
Setting aside his personal connection to the subject, McCandless is a skilled and gifted writer. The Austin-based author succeeds at translating the minutia of his father’s life into a riveting journey, allowing readers to vicariously experience a large swath of the twentieth century through the eyes of a man who experienced some of our nation’s most important events firsthand. Throughout much of this book, McCandless utilizes a journalistic flair, judiciously sprinkling personal anecdotes throughout the otherwise well researched text. In fact, it’s the exhaustive focus on his father’s career highlights that presents this biography with its one and only glaring flaw—those without an overwhelming interest in NASA or space exploration may struggle to cross the finish line. But setting aside that minor gripe, the takeaway here is that Bruce McCandless II was an intrepid man of integrity—something his son captures in each and every page.
By channeling a unique perspective informed by a lifetime of personal memories, Bruce McCandless III offers readers both a meticulously researched and well written portrait of his father’s life and career as an integral part of the U.S. Space Program in WONDERS ALL AROUND.
~James Weiskittel for IndieReader