Anderson Clayton C. - Outposts on the frontier: a fifty-year history of space stations

I have known Jay Chladek for about a decade. Essentially acquainted through the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum, located just off Interstate 80 in my home town of Ashland, Nebraska, Jay and my mother Alice were frequent attendees at various museum events. Recognizing in each other in a simultaneous zeal for space, along with an overwhelming desire to occupy front-row seats (Mom didnt want to look at the back of Jays head), they continued to strike up conversations at book signings and lectures, most notably those by NASA astronauts. It was through their developing friendshipfurther enhanced by my standing as Nebraskas first and only astronautand the completion of my first mission to the space station in 2007 that we would meet and ultimately become friends.

As an astronaut, I had the wonderful privilege of flying in space... twice. While the hours spent orbiting Earth were memorable, far more hours were spent between the countries of the United States and Russiakey training locations for any astronaut destined for the International Space Station ( ISS ). How interesting that during the time of my training and spaceflights, the United States and Russia would work together as space-faring partners rather than competitors. These were two prideful space programs, the envy of the entire world. Driven almost solely by the enormous number of dedicated people toiling behind the scenes, they were all working together, half a world apart. They had a singleand remarkably easy-to-stategoal: the safe delivery and return of humans to outer space, including protecting and sustaining these beings known as astronauts and cosmonauts as they lived and worked side by side in space for months at a time. A goal not so easy to execute, these prideful nations were faced with political and financial woes on the ground, catalyzed by the oft-antagonistic relationship of the upper levels of their respective governments.

I was given a remarkable gift: the chance to see things from both sides. Working at NASA from the very early days of the space shuttle program, before one day joining the astronaut corps and flying in space, I was a ticket-holding spectator of sorts, watching two rival superpowers come together through a program we called the ISS .

Jays book, Outposts on the Frontier, chronicles a large part of this historical transformation. Much as he does while building intricate scale models of flying and space vehicles, Chladek provides the reader with intricate, precise details, covering nearly everything happening in space over the past fifty years. Analogous to the tight-fitting pieces and in-depth paint jobs of one of his model projects, Jay gives the astute reader a deep, interlocking look behind the scenes, clearly illustrating the processes that allowed the program to fall into place. In Jays own words, It is kind of like a big tapestry of international developments... the relationship between Russia and America seeming like an episode of The Odd Couple, with the European Space Agency, Canada, and Japan coming along for the ride. Everyone seems to be working together because they dont have the ability to go it alone anymore.

You will put down this book a much smarter reader than the day you started!

Live long... and prosper!

Clayton C. Anderson