Re: Dragonfly

Robert Reeves (rreeves@connecti.com)
Mon, 22 Feb 1999 06:33:04 -0600 

>Personal opinions -
>
>I didn't think Andy Chakin was harsh enough with his review of this book.
>While "Dragonfly" has many interesting pieces of information it also has
>many many many technical mistakes.
>Philip Chien, KC4YER

This book has been extensively discussed in another newsgroup I keep up
with, the FPSpace group, but it is fresh meat here, so I'll comment about my
opinion on Dragonfly.

I am half way through Dragonfly right now (Wow! LONG book!)  In general,
I find it a fascinating read, but I don't really trust what I am reading.
Any book
has errors in it.  The author has to be superhuman to catch all of them (I
can
show you a dozen in my own book).  But Dragonfly seems to push the errors
envelope to new heights.  I am not directly associated with the manned
spaceflight
program but I have followed space exploration closely for 40-odd years and I
know enough about it to see way too many errors in Dragonfly.

On the FPSpace group I said a while ago that I heard a radio interview with
Dragonfly author Bryan Burrough and from the tone of his comments I was
appaled by the cloud of negativity he projected about anything he said.  I
really feel, that in spite of the book being skillfully crafted as an
excellent
read, that it really represents a negative agenda being pushed by the
author.
He seems out to bash NASA and its manned space program in any way he
can.  A case in point is Burrough's constant dredging up dirt on numerous
individuals.  He paints a pretty sorry picture of many many people, but
there is no real coroberating evidence presented to suport his
condemnations,
just his own  narative.

I freely admit that I think NASA overemphasizes the Shuttle program
at the expense of planetary exploration and the return of men to the Moon,
so I am NO huge fan of rooting manned spaceflight in low Earth orbit for the
next three decades.  But even I find Burrough's subtle brickbatting hard to
take.

In conclusion, I am mentally treating Dragonfly as I would an old Martin
Caidin
spaceflight fiction book (like Marroned).  An interesting account about what
might have happened, but don't think of it as the gospel truth about what
did
happen.  Well... come to think of (in my opinion), Caidin's fiction might
have
even been more free of technical errors than Dragonfly.

Robert Reeves            http://www.connecti.com/~rreeves
520 Rittiman Rd.         rreeves@connecti.com
San Antonio, TX          210-828-9036
U.S.A.                        29.484N  98.440W  200 meters