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Echoes Among the Stars: The Original Website

Echoes Among the Stars: A Short History of the U.S. Space Program

• About the Book
• About the Author
• Reviews and Press Coverage
• Readers Respond
• Purchase Echoes Among the Stars

About the Book:  Echoes Among the Stars

• Published January, 2000   • Second Hardcover Printing, June, 2000   • Paperback Edition, August, 2000

Emphasizing the importance of the space program to the scientific, social and cultural history of the last half of the 20th century, this brief history celebrates the almost unimaginable technological leap that the space program represents, a feat of teamwork, innovation, dedication, and mastery unprecedented in the history of human endeavor.  Walsh’s narrative begins just before the Mercury program, covers the original seven astronauts, the Gemini and Apollo programs, through Skylab and up to the space shuttle. The glories and emotion of space exploration are presented against the backdrop of the Cold War, the presidential administrations of Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter, and other significant events in U.S. history. The positive accomplishments of the astronauts are put in the context of an increasingly negative domestic situation in the Sixties and Seventies, the Bay of Pigs, civil rights, assassinations, growing involvement in and dissension about Vietnam, the Watergate scandal, and Nixon’s resignation. A more readable, colorful picture of the U.S. space program has not been available to the nontechnical audience.
 Contents:  1. NASA Lifts Off: The 1950s  2. Project Mercury: Setting the Sights  3. Project Gemini: A Bridge to the Moon  4. Apollo I: Lives in Eclipse  5. Apollo Before the Moon: Into the Light  6. Apollo XI: Life on an Ancient World  7. Apollo XII and XIII: Storms in Space  8. Before the Short Day Ends: Apollo in Twilight  9. Skylab: A Place in Space 10. ASTP: A Handshake Across the Heavens 11. The 1970s: Journeys Without and Within 12. Echoes: The Shuttle Era and Beyond  Hardcover ISBN 0-7656-0537-6  208 pages. Photographs, chronology, bibliography, index.  Published by: M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 80 Business Park Drive Armonk, New York 10504 914-273-1800 800-541-6563 Fax 914-273-2106  www.mesharpe.com 
About the Author: Patrick J. Walsh
The author of Echoes Among the Stars: A Short History of the U.S. Space Program, Patrick J. Walsh has been a reporter and writer for almost two decades. Beginning his career on a mass market financial advice magazine (Arden’s Money Matters) in 1983, Walsh wrote for a wide array of small local and regional publications throughout the 1980s.

Along the way, he published hundreds of news and feature articles and opinion pieces, as well as occasional fiction and poetry, throughout his undergraduate college years. His poems, including an epic sequel to “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” written in the classic form of the original, were granted several awards in college literary competitions at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York, from which he graduated with a B.A. in literature and communications in 1986. He was also awarded a silver medalist designation by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for a short story, “Thieves,” and a ‘Best Feature’ award by the American Scholastic Press Association for a feature article, “Twelve Years and a Thousand Summers Ago...,” which profiled veterans of the Vietnam War.  As a publications consultant in the mid-1980s, he provided consultation and design expertise for publications produced by a variety of civic organizations and political campaigns, and conceived the “Riverfront Summer” advertising campaign that the City of Peekskill, New York has used annually since 1988. His company also produced publications for the city that were honored with the New York State Recreation and Parks Society Award and the Parks & Recreation Professionals Award.  He entered the world of corporate publishing in 1989, taking a full-time staff position at a monthly trade magazine, EE Product News. At the same time, he began a second career as an adjunct professor, teaching computerized publishing to adult students at Westchester (New York) Community College, and then teaching writing at Pace University. In the acknowledgements section of Echoes Among the Stars, he gratefully notes the inspiration that his teaching career and his many student friends at Pace have provided for his writing efforts.

Starting his corporate career in the publication’s editorial department, he rapidly moved into an Information Systems role at EE Product News, smoothing the magazine’s transition to computerized publishing. He then moved into a marketing role, working closely with the publisher in the launch of a European edition of the magazine in 1995.  In 1996 Patrick returned to writing full-time, creating his own business as a regular contributor to a number of magazines, websites, and newspapers. He also began work on Echoes Among the Stars at that time, in the summer of 1996, doing research in local libraries and on the web. He also returned to teach several writing courses at Pace University after several years’ hiatus from teaching. He is currently doing research and formulating ideas for his next book, as well as working on regular writing assignments for several publications. 
Reviews and Press Coverage
KIRKUS REVIEWS, December 15, 1999 NONFICTION, p. 1943 Just as advertised, Walsh provides an overview of the American space program, from the V-2 rockets of Nazi Germany to John Glenn’s historic return to space in 1998. Instead of emphasizing technical detail or the history of unmanned missions, Walsh (Literature and Communications/Pace Univ.) focuses persuasively on the politics of space, especially in the early years. He reminds us how stunned we were in October of 1957, when the Soviet Union began the space race by launching Sputnik I. In those days, the Russians seemed formidable indeed. Much depended on our landing on the moon, and it wasn’t until then—12 years later—that American hegemony in space was clearly established. Walsh revisits the fears and triumphs of the Mercury and Gemini missions, from Gordon Cooper’s cool precision aboard Faith 7 to Gus Grissom’s near-drowning after the famous exploding bolts episode of Liberty Bell 7. Mission by mission, Walsh chronicles the Apollo program, from fly-arounds to moonwalks to the aborted, nearly fatal Apollo 13. Walsh’s history of the politics of the space race climaxes in his narrative of the Apollo-Soyuz missions that on the one hand seemed to bring a pause to the Cold War, and on the other, to rouse forces on both sides to one last fling at competition. After Apollo-Soyuz, the American program entered a long hiatus before at last settling into a groove of shuttle missions. Walsh spends little time on the shuttles, though he offers informative accounts of Sally Ride’s career, the Challenger tragedy, and John Glenn’s return to space. He does not speculate on uses of the new space station, future moon missions, or Mars exploration. Walsh is particularly skillful at contrasting the US and Soviet space programs. Otherwise, he is accurate, uncontroversial, and readable: a fine term paper source.
 LIBRARY JOURNAL, February 1, 2000 Another survey history of the space program after no fewer than three recent similar well-received efforts in as many years (T.A. Heppenheimer’s Countdown, LJ 5/15/97; William Burrow’s This New Ocean, LJ 9/15/98; and Tom Crouch’s Aiming for the Stars, LJ 9/15/99)? Actually, Walsh’s slim volume does have real appeal owing to its narrow focus on the manned space flight angle. Walsh succinctly recounts the early successes of the Mercury and Gemini missions that paved the way for the Apollo moon landings as well as the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz mission that marked the end of the first era of U.S. manned space flight. And he brings the story up to date with the return of John Glenn to orbit aboard the Shuttle. Despite the short shrift given the unmanned exploration of the planets, Walsh’s book is recommended for public libraries seeking a concise history of manned space flight

Readers Respond
“Walsh’s poetic descriptions of humanity’s fascination with space make this book thoroughly enjoyable. The writing is smooth and the emotional impact made me forget that I was reading a nonfiction, historical study. The author’s obvious love for and knowledge of the subject make it easy to understand the details of each mission, and his thoughtful analysis makes it easy to visualize the space program’s most famous moments. The result is a vivid retelling that brings each mission, from the earliest years to the present, brilliantly to life.” -- Steve Borzoni, Rye Brook, New York
 “A tantalizing in-depth analysis of the very real events of the space race, space exploration, the cosmonauts and astronauts, and other people who made it happen. . . . It’s illuminating and well-written . . . and as the international space station starts to become a reality, Walsh’s book will undoubtedly serve as a stepping stone from recent history into the events of the near future. He brings a complex and technical subject to life in a nonclinical manner that would be of interest to both educators and general audiences.” -- Alex Mendelsohn, Kennebunk, Maine
 “Echoes Among the Stars succeeds very well as a short history of the space program . . . It is not “original scholarship,” but rather a popular treatment intended both for the general reading public and for undergraduates (or possibly well-prepared high school students). It reads very smoothly, and is especially successful in two ways: first, in its handling of technical/technological matters in an accessible way, and second, in its placing of the space program in the time period out of which it came and which it also reflected.” -- Lawson Bowling, Manhattanville College, Purchase, New York

Purchase Echoes Among the Stars
Echoes Among the Stars is available through bookstores across the U.S. and via online booksellers such as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com -- see the list below.
For additional purchase information, to adopt the book for classroom use, or for other group sales or rights information, please contact the publisher at:

M.E. Sharpe, Inc. 80 Business Park Drive Armonk, New York 10504 914-273-1800 800-541-6563 Fax 914-273-2106  www.mesharpe.com  . . . or just follow the links below!  Hardcover ISBN 0-7656-0537-6

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Note:
This is the original website for the book Echoes Among the Stars, by Patrick J. Walsh. To visit Pat’s current sites, go to:

• Pat’s Website (echoesamongthestars.com)

• Pat’s Portfolio: Home

• Contact Pat (dignity01@aol.com)