"Atlantis touched down on runway 15 at precisely 5:57a.m. EDT, with the nose gear coming down twenty seconds later. At 5:57:54a.m. EDT, the wheels came to a stop for the final time. A Space Shuttle would never move another inch while engaged in active flight operations. "Mission complete, Houston." Ferguson called just after motion ended. "After serving the world for over thirty years, the Space Shuttle found its place in history, and it's come to a final stop." Wilmore, back at the CapCom console in Houston, responded. "We copy your wheels stop, and we'll take this opportunity to congratulate you, Atlantis, as well as the thousands of passionate individuals across this great spacefaring nation who truly empowered this incredible spacecraft, which for three decades has inspired millions around the globe. Job well done, America."

Wheels Stop is book 10 in the Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight series. I read book 2 Homesteading Space back in 2012, and just as with that book, I became fatigued with this book. They are not light reading. This book covers every shuttle flight from the Challenger explosion to Atlantis' last run. Over 500 individuals have flown in space, and including the engineers and flight directors that were also interviewed, you can imagine that the cast of characters is daunting.

I have not previously done much reading on the Shuttle itself, even though I grew up on the Spacecoast of Florida during the Shuttle Era. I've always been more interested in Apollo for some reason. Reading about the early crews to MIR and how they learned to work with the Russians, ferrying the Hubble telescope to high orbit and then returning to fix it and the nitty-gritty of building the ISS, really laid out a good map of our thirty year journey. What I took away from most of these interviews is what a capable, adaptable individual an astronaut truly is. Nothing went 100% to plan and even when they didn't train for an exact procedure, what they did train for prepared them for doing something extraordinary for the very first time with little to no margin for error. But they came across as so human too. Many talked about how emotional they became upon performing their first EVA, going out into the vastness of space. The loss of their friends and colleagues on Challenger and Columbia. Their frustration when the decision came to close out the Shuttle program.

I wouldn't recommend this book for the casual reader. If this is a subject you read on regularly, you might want to check it out. ( )