Gus Grissom: The Lost Astronaut Book

. I had heard about Gus Grissom, one of three astronauts who were killed because, as my mom said, the three military men were killed because of the greed of the contractors. As it turns out, the book mentions at the end that Mr. Grissom's widow received an out-of-court settlement of only $60K plus $75K for each of her two sons from the contractor responsible plus the kids ended up receiving a full scholarship later to Purdue, the school of their dad.
The author does a simple job reviewing the life of a simple man who seemed to fall into the NASA program. Growing up in a modest home, Gus had problems with first success and married young. He seemed a bit disconnected to his wife, heading off to war then to college then to NASA. When he was selected to be on the Mercury flight, it was after Glenn orbited the Earth for the first time and was invited - with his wife - to the White House. But because of the controversy of the blown hatch, Grissom didn't receive that same treatment. His wife was really upset about that, although he was invited to the White House after another trip.
The book covering how the astronauts had a say in the design of the capsule was really interesting; Senator Glenn spoke about the importance of a window, something that impacted how NASA billed the flights by what they viewed. It was also good that the author covered how their humor broke through the boredom that took over waiting for another flight. It reminded me of the book and movie, "The Right Stuff."
The final chapter of the book was sad and instructional both about what happened and the blame game that took place afterwards.
While a simple book, it was interesting and worth the read.