Backchannel:
I took another sleeping pill to get to sleep that night. I was that nervous. I knew that the next day was my day. It was going to happen. I was going to go out in that space suit and I was going to have to perform. I’d be doing it under a microscope, too. Everything you do out there is being recorded by helmet camera. Everybody’s watching. Anything goes wrong, and everybody knows. I had this incredible anticipation. Not like Christmas morning; more like the first day of school, where you’re excited by the new possibilities but also terrified about making friends and not screwing up.
Just from the excerpt, I want to read this book.
And then there is this:
“During the pre-breathe, you’re attached to the wall to keep you from banging around. So, right before you’re about to face the most difficult moment of your entire life, you’ve got forty minutes to do nothing but hang there and obsess over everything that could go wrong. I tried to stay focused, going over the checklist on my cuff, thinking about my tasks, double- and triple-checking to see if everything was right with the suit. But my mind wandered. My eyes kept drifting nervously. At one point I looked at Newman and we locked eyes. He nodded at me and I nodded at him. Then I looked over at the outer hatch. I remember staring at it and thinking: There it is. That’s the door to space.”
Yup.
Cant wait to read the entire book!