Tom Stafford is the last man of Gemini, having outlived all of his previous colleagues. Born in 1930 on the Oklahoma plains, he sought escape from poverty like many through the armed forces. Though too young for World War 2, he found his home in the newly-made Air Force, and served in Korea before his childhood love of the stars and love for flying the newest and most interesting vehicles prompted him to apply for NASA, where he became a member of the New Nine. (He was a man to hedge his bets, though: he’d applied for Harvard Business School and attended class for all of three days before Deke Slayton rang him up and asked if he was still interested in going to the Moon.) Stafford would fly in both Gemini and Apollo, and develop a name for himself as Mr. Rendezvous after being the first to rendezvous with an object in Earth orbit. Stafford does not dwell on this accomplishment in We Have Capture, but focuses more on his role in American-Soviet relations. Though the other astronauts occasionally met Russian cosmonauts at flight shows and the like, it wasn’t until the Apollo-Soyuz capstone mission that genuine relationships began to grow, eventually culminating in larger projects like the International Space Station. Stafford became close friends with Aleksei Leonov, Russia’s first space-walker, and was able to learn about the Soviet Union’s own mishaps and near misses (Leonov was very nearly killed attempting to return to his capsule), including deaths in their program. He also grew to appreciate the fact that the cosmonauts were ordinary and often likable men, doing their best in a harsh system. As a way of paying tribute to his friend across the ocean, Stafford devotes part of his biography to covering Leonov’s as well, though not to the same degree as Two Sides of the Moon. Stafford went on to greater responsibilities, including commanding his old stomping grounds of Edwards Air Base and Groom Lake, otherwise known as Dreamland or Area 51. (Says Stafford: there are no aliens at Groom Lake. There was, however, a small fleet of Russian planes, obtained through mysterious means.) We Have Capture is a very accessible and personable Apollo memoir, from a man who is solidly straightforward and likable.

That ends Space Camp for this year, though there may be a couple of space books later in the month: I ordered a memoir (Off the Planet) from an American astronaut who spent several months on Mir, and there’s still a lunar novel I’m thinking about trying.