Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut

In 1978, the first group of space shuttle astronauts was introduced to the world — twenty-nine men and six women who would carry NASA through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Among them was USAF Colonel Mike Mullane, who, in his memoir Riding Rockets, strips the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are — human.

Mullane's tales of arrested development among military flyboys working with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists are…