Rocky Mount Telegram from Rocky Mount, North Carolina • 24

6D Rocky Mount TMegrim Sumtap, December 14. 2008 Books Living on the final frontier Colley tails Marsh on world trip The New York Tlmei Decades later; Skylab's effects still appreciated Homesteading Space: The sk lab Story by David Hitt, Owen Garriott and Joe Kerwin; University of Nebraska Press; 548 pages; $29.95. This book is the inspirational account of the three Skylab missions flown in 1973-74 that provided the key to U.S. space activities that followed the highly productive program. Skylab's flights proved to the world that humans could live and work for long periods in space.

The experiences of the crews amassed led to a treasure trove of scientific knowledge that is as yet unmatched by even the International Space Station. The scientific and technological brilliance and love of adventure of all the Skylab astronauts was remarkable, and that's amply attested to in the lively narrative. In his foreword, NASA engineer 1 A selection of gumma ries from The New York Times Book Review: The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History by Linda Colley; Anchor; $16.95. This biography of an obscure 18th-century travel writer is a "dazzling performance of historical scholarship," reviewer Megan Marshall wrote; it was one of the review's 10 Best Books of 2007. Marsh spent time in cities and towns from London to Madras, sometimes with her parents or husband, sometime (memorably) on her own.

Colley's wide-ranging research brings us "a world in a book," Marshall writes. Other Colors: Essays and a Story by Orhan Pamuk; translated by Maureen Freely; Vintage International; $15.95. Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006, writes at a desk in Istanbul that overlooks the bridge between Europe and Asia; most of the essays here are also set on the European periphery. He NASA photo The three Skylab missions showed that man could adapt and work for long periods of time in space. AN EXCERPT "I think for me that was probably the low point of the mission because it threatened our ability to get our job done, and I wasn't Since a real snowstorm never occurs In space, the crew knew immediately that something was leaking from Skylab somewhere.

Homer Hickam, writes: "Skylab was designed to gain scientific knowledge in Earth orbit by utilizing equipment originally designed to carry men to the moon and back. Skylab's huge volume, its well-constructed and considered scientific packages, its ability to Mae Woods Bell Book Reviewer willing to come home," Lousma said. "I've never been afraid of space, but that was a fear I had losing the mission more than anything else." Ben recalled that the crew got a call from Johnson center director Chris Kraft Judging thot the leak was probably from the Apollo spacecraft docked to the far end of the station, Lousma and Bean zoomed off through the workshop, the airlock, and the Multiple Docking Adapter to the Command Module writes of his love for Istanbul center of the his interest in writers such And more importantly was the problem isolated to only those two thrusters? With those were several related issues. The precise cause of the problems had to be identified. It had to be determined whether the two failures were connected.

The likelihood of another failure had to be examined. These in turn raised more questions: Could the crew successfully re-enter with only one usable quad if there was another failure? Should they come home right away before there were any more failures? Was it possible to mount a rescue mission for the crew? Could a Command Module be reconfigured in time to allow one or two crewmen to come up to Skylab then return with three more passengers? Most of the answers had to be worked out with the large assembly o( talented engineers and flight controllers. Of course the astronauts on orbit were very much interested in their thinking, and wanted to participate in the decision making as well. to discuss how to proceed. They told him that, despite the problems, they wanted to stay and complete their mission.

"We were concerned that they were going to make us undock and come home, which we didn't want to do, naturally," he said. Only two of the four quad thrusters were now usable and an extended debate was initiated, especially on the ground. There were two vital questions that had to be faced. Could the crew maneuver home safely in a Command Module with only half of its quad thrusters functioning? In a matter of seconds', where they confirmed that another of their spacecraft's quad thrusters had sprung a leak, even though the valves were turned off. With guidance from the ground, the systems were configured so that all propellants to both of the leaking quads were completely cut off.

"I remember seeing that shower spray was what it looked like glistening in the sunlight," Lousma thereafter, the low-pressure alarms went off.AI hustled for the Command Module and shut everything off." generate more than adequate electrical power (after some emergency and its focused crews made it, in my opinion, the finest comprehensive science and technological platform any country has ever sent into space. But I have to confess what I really, really like about Skylab is this: When it got into trouble, spacemen armed with wrenches, screwdrivers, and tin snips were sent up to fix it. No robots, no computers, no remotely controlled manipulating arms, just guys in suits carrying tools. Just as the title of the book indicates, Skylab ultimately taught us how to make space our home. For a facility partially built from spare parts, I think that's prodigious." Preparing Skylab for its journeys is an intricate weaving together of physics, empiricism and compromise.

The first chapter tells the story from the original attempts to practice loosening bolts in a neutral-buoyancy tank to possible health problems caused by prolonged weightlessness to fine-tuning docking procedures to rocket launches. Nine astronauts were selected to serve on the Skylab flight crews. Only Alan Bean and Pete Conrad had flown in space before. Owen Garriott, Ed Gibson, and Joe Kerwin were scientist-astronauts NASA earlier had selected. The remaining four Jerry Carr, Jack Lousma, Bill Pogue, and Paul Weitz were rookie astronaut as Dos- toyevsky and his faith in writing only defense against life's Mere Anarchy by Woody Allen; Random House; $14.

About 10 years ago, Allen resumed submitting funny short pieces to The New Yorker after a long absence; they are collected here with some additional material. Even if there's nothing that stands up to "The Whore of Mensa," Allen, "when he's on form, is as capable as ever of delivering pleasure," reviewer David Kamp wrote. Notes From The Air: Selected Later Poems by John Ashbery; Ecco HarperCollins; $16.95. This anthology offers a chance to stand back and look at what Ashbery has been up to for the past 20 years difficult and unpredictable poems, often about writing itoelf. Most of them are composed in free verse, often in long lines that fit his meandering, speculative mood.

volcano on Sicily and the Aswan Dam in Egypt. It is the most well-defined man-made object I've seen to date." After the third mission, Skylab was set to burn up on re-entry. The discussion and planning for its re-entry will keep the reader spellbound, even though we know the denouement. (The station broke up over the Indian Ocean, with some pieces landing in Western Australia.) The authors are journalist and writer David Hitt, who is a NASA editor, and Owen Garriott and Joe Kerwin, former NASA members who were two of the first six scientist-astronauts selected in 1965 and who served on Skylab in 1973. ment in designing for micrograv-ity It was designed to be used by men whose brains had long been wired for the one-G environment.

These first nine men proved that humans can adapt. Profiles of each of the crew members and the stories they tell in their own words read like a good space novel. Anecdotal, revealing and often wryly humorous, this is a tale no one else could have told for them. Closing the book is the complete text of the diary that Skylab commander Alan Bean kept during his time on the space station from launch on July 28, 1973, until his return to Earth almost two months later. His last entry: "I saw an active pilots.

Throughout the development of Skylab, the training of the astronauts included spending time inside an experimental space station, designing and testing hardware. Each crew member would spend about 1,500 hours in training and in-flight workload. 4 All this led to the missions that lasted 28, 59 and 84 days. There is a cutaway view of the Skylab that gives a clear picture of the station's interior as approached through the docking adapter, the airlock and the workshop. Foremost among the scientific equipment in the module was the operator's station for the Apollo telescope mount.

The workshop was part of the experi- HARDBACK NONFICTION 1 Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell 2. American Lion by Jon Meachani 3. Dewey byVicki Myron with Bret Witter 4. Do the Right Thing by Mike Huckabee 5. Too Fat to Fish by Artie Lange with Anthony Bozza PAPERBACK NONFICTION 1 The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama 2.

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A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 4. Cole Protocol by Tobias S. Buckell 5. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz HARDBACK ADVICE, HOW-TO, ETC. 1 The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow 2.

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1 Twilight by Mark Cotta Vaz 2. The Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick et al 3. Rachael Ray's Big Orange Book by Rachael Ray 4. What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff et al 5. 1 Can Has Cheezburger? by Professor Happycat et al Rankings by The New York Times "Aphorisms are bad for novels.The stick in the reader's teeth." ANATOLE BROYARD, U.S.

literary critic.