Apollo Part 1: AS-1 through AS-13

Apollo Part One: the PRINT version

Apollo Part One: the eBook

"Apollo Part 1" will be the first book released in the Growing Up With Spaceflight series. Covering Apollo 1 through Apollo 13 the book looks at the effort to get mankind to the moon through the eyes of the author from age 9 to the age of 12. Of course the story goes beyond just Hot Wheels track and  Revell  models as we follow a kid who was casually interested in the space program and watch as he turns into an insane space-buff. Along the way a good deal of fun details about the program are included. The author, who is well known in Great Lakes maritime circles for his deep research of otherwise over-looked facts and weaving that information into narrative form, applies tidbits  that you may never before have known into each story.

You'll feel as if you are sitting with him in the dark watching that historic Christmas eve broadcast from the Moon during Apollo 8, because you may well have been doing the same thing yourself. It will strike you that his story is also your story as memories come flooding back.

This volume is now in publication and can be found on Kindle, Amazon (for the print version), KoBo, B&N and Smashwords.com

Apollo Part 2 AS-14 through AS-17

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APOLLO PART TWO

Or... in e-book here:

APOLLO PART TWO

"Apollo Part 2" picks up with Apollo 14 and takes you through Apollo 17 with the author, now in Junior High School attempting to cope with having to attend, what he calls, the worst school in the universe. The secret; when commotion breaks out in the classroom, pull Apollo over your head like a blanket. Still, he seeks a way to preserve the Apollo missions for continued consumption and his method of doing so becomes the use of cassette audio tapes recorded from the family TV set.

Doing thousands of landings on the living room carpet with model LEMs, his family thought he was strange, but how many of you did the same thing?

If you were born after Apollo, this is your chance to get a good look at what it was like to grow up in that era- and it is NOTHING like Hollywood tends to portray it.

Skylab / ASTP

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Growing up with Spaceflight- Skylab/ ASTP

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Growing up with Spaceflight- Skylab/ASTP

"Skylab/ASTP" is the volume of Growing Up With Spaceflight that covers what could easily have been an exciting era for any space-buff; Skylab! But, as the author was to discover, it was one of the periods of US spaceflight that was the least covered by the news media. So, although America had astronauts continuously in space for the better part of 10 months, that fact could easily have been missed.

By the way, if you think you know how the Skylab workshop was actually damaged during its boost into space, you may want to read this book. The actual post flight report does not match any documentary that you've seen, including those put out by NASA itself. They almost lost the whole damned Saturn V.

As the United States moved its space program from advancing human civilization to advancing Nixon's geo-political ambitions with the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), the author, now a high school kid, finds himself facing a true space-buff's a dilemma. Should he stick by the family TV set and take in every precious moment of network TV coverage of the mission, or spend the weekend up at the lake with his new girlfriend? What choice would you make while growing up with spaceflight?


The Skylab/ASTP volume is available NOW!

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Growing up with Spaceflight- Space Shuttle

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Growing up with Spaceflight- Space Shuttle

"Space Shuttle" takes you and the author from sitting in his basement "room" on August 12th, 1977 watching the shuttle ENTERPRISE make her first glide flight at Edwards, to camping out all night on the riverbank in Titusville, Florida waiting to see the first shuttle, STS-1, launch in 1981, to covering the final flight of the shuttle program from the press site 30 years later.

As an eye witness to that program, the author always kept in mind the millions of you out there who had no choice other than watching it on TV. Now you'll stand with him and witness the first shuttle launches, and the final launches. You'll also witness the loss of the CHALLENGER, because there are simply some moments in history that the human eye cannot un-see.

The shuttle was a glorious program that America made a mistake by ending.

Available NOW!

Project Mercury

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Growing up with Spaceflight- Project Mercury

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Growing up with Spaceflight- Project Mercury

Project "Mercury" is the volume of Growing Up With Spaceflight that begins with the author's earliest memory; sitting in front of grandma's TV set watching Freedom 7 launch.

The Project Mercury volume covers every thing from the Mercury Little Joe to Shepard's proposed Freedom 7 II. Inside are details you may have never read before and myths that you likely see over and over are busted as well.

Gemini

This book can be gotten, autographed and personalized here:

Growing up with Spaceflight- Project Gemini

Or on Amazon here:

Growing up with Spaceflight- Project Gemini

This volume contains the true story of what it was like for an average guy to literally grow up with the American space program. The premise being that some people were close to the space program, hands-on, working daily with the hardware and the technology that made history… the rest of us had to watch it on TV. The book is the second of a six volume series and follows the author from the through the days of Project Gemini as his ever shifting attention span follows the flight while being constantly distracted by “Batman” and “Fireball XL5” and he managed to flunk the third grade. Along the way readers who also grew up in that era will read the accounts and say, “Hey! That was me too! I did that with the models, I watched that on TV, I remember that day. Whoa! I didn’t flunk the third grade.” Additionally, readers who were not yet born will be able to get an up-close and personal look though the keyhole of the door of time and experience what it was really like to grow up in that exciting era. Author Wes Oleszewski is known for his detailed historical narratives published in his 18 previous books that look at shipwrecks, now he turns that focus onto the golden era of America’s space program. Those readers who seek technical details about NASA’s manned space vehicles and rockets will not be disappointed. The author has, as always, dug deeper than previous writers into NASA’s documentation and pulled out fascinating and highly obscure details of the events. Working with two editors and one technical advisor who are, in their own right, experts in the history of spaceflight, the author managed to surprise even them with a few previously over-looked facts. Yet, although technically correct and fact-filled, the “Growing Up With Spaceflight” series is not a dry engineering account. Rather it is fun and witty read that will take the reader on a pleasure trip to a time gone-by. The author has gone to great lengths to add illustrations that are both informative and unique. As in all of his works, Wes Oleszewski has produced a book that is free of gratuitous sex and violence and he remains clear of the personal lives of the people who made the space program happen. This is a book of pleasure reading that avoids tabloid tidbits. Readers will enjoy this book and they will learn a thing or two as they do.