Thomas D. Jones

Tom Jones, an astronaut with a background in planetary science, joined NASA in the first wave of recruitment after the Challenger accident and flew four shuttle flights between 1994 and 2001. He covers those flights, and his other astronaut activities, in considerable detail here. His writing isn't flowery or thrilling, but, despite the usual NASA fondness for acronyms, it is very readable, and includes moment-by-moment accounts of takeoffs and landings, which I always find deeply show more interesting. One thing I am very much struck by in this account is the way that small mishaps -- which occur in space, as they do everywhere else -- can loom very large. Sometimes if you miss throwing the right switch at the right time, the consequences are minor and you figure it out and go on with things. But sometimes a small mistake in putting your space suit on causes you hours of misery. Sometimes you don't get to make a spacewalk you've been training to do for the last year of your life because a door gets stuck and you can't get out of the spacecraft. And sometimes, as the fates of Challenger and Columbia remind us, the results can be tragic and deadly.

I don't know, maybe it makes me feel a bit better about the problems that crop up with my own job. show less

Several astronauts have penned memoirs over the past 40 plus years detailing their experiences. A few of them are forgettable. Some, I am thinking of Mike Collins' "Carrying the Fire and Walt Cunningham's "The All-American Boys", are classics. With the end of the Space Shuttle program comes a new memoir from Tom Jones. "Sky Walking" is an interesting look at the Shuttle program in the Post-Challenger period. Jones, a former Air Force pilot with a PhD in Planetary Science, gives an excellent show more view of what it is like to fly four space shuttle missions and about the problems and challenges in involved. Unfortunately like most the of the space program, the Shuttle became a prisoner of the politics of the time and was never funded properly. A hundred years from now, if mankind is still around, and clothed in-it's-right-mind, some historian will refer to Jones' book in writing the history of early space age. show less

In a clever play on Michael Collins' "Carrying the Fire", one highlight chapter of this book is titled "Through the Fire", which recounts the safe and exhilarating deorbit of Columbia on one of the author's four Space Shuttle missions. The book is richly endowed with amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and gives the reader a good sense of what it means to be a Shuttle astronaut.

Hell Hawks! is the story of young American P-47 fighter pilots, and their gritty, close-quarters fight against Hitlers vaunted military. The "Hell Hawks" were the men and machines of the 365th Fighter Group.

Hell Hawks sets a new standard for histories of the tactical anti-war in Europe. Veteran authors Bob Dorr and Tom Jones combine masterfully crafted veteran interviews with the broader picture of the air war fought by the Thunderbolt men. You gain a new appreciation of just how tough show more their deadly task was, and the courage needed to fly close air support against the Nazi fighters and flak. This outstanding book raises the bar on aviation history as it brings alive the true story of an aerial band of brothers." - Colonel Walter J. Boyne, National Aviation Hall of Famer, former director of the National Air & Space Museum, and best-selling author

Beginning just prior to D-Day, June 6, 1944, the groups young pilots (most were barely twenty years old and fresh from flight training in the United States) flew in close support of Eisenhower’s ground forces as they advanced across France and into Germany. They flew the rugged, heavily armed P-47 Thunderbolt, aka the Jug. Living in tents amid the cold mud of their front-line airfields, the 365ths daily routine had much in common with that of the G.I.s they supported.

Their war only stopped with the Nazi surrender on May 8, 1945. During their year in combat, the Hell Hawks paid a heavy price to win the victory. Sixty-nine pilots and airmen died in the fight across the continent. The Groups 1,241 combat missions -- the daily confrontation of sudden, violent death -- forged bonds between these men that remain strong sixty years later. This book will tell their story, the story of the Hell Hawks. show less