One is not suppose to cry at the end of an autobiography by an Apollo astronaut, but this book really hurt. Apollo 7 and Donn Eisele’s life, though, is a tragedy. Apollo 7 was a highly successful mission, the first manned flight of the Apollo Command Module. Other books, especially from Mission Control personnel, speak poorly of Apollo 7 and its crew, but one needs to read all of the perspectives. Maybe we are all Donn Eiseles in our careers.

The only drawback is the narrator. Guido is not an Italian name, it is guidance officer. How do you mispronounce something so historic! 2-stars off. The other star off is for mispronouncing the start of many nouns, like "wanch" instead of "ranch." I wonder what Donn’s real voice is like, as I wonder in all autobiographies.

I am very grateful to Francis French and Donn’s second wife for making this book possible. It is a new book, copyright 2017.

History is what we build in our mind, and that should come only from eye-witness accounts, not historians. I strongly discourage reading books by historians. Remember, they are for profit authors, and rarely do the work to find eye-witness accounts. My father did something historic, and historians denied him the knowledge of his contribution before he died – killing Roland Freisler.

Be sure to read Michael Collin’s book, too. Get on Amazon and find the first edition hardbacks of autobiographies. Read Collins’s book about John Young (Gemini 10) and then John Young’s book about Collins. The astronauts love talking about each other! The hardback books have pictures, references, and other information excluded from the audio book. Some audio books have additional content, like the Apollo 8 book, which I recommend. I also recommend "Go Flight!" which lead to an extensive Amazon order of autobiographies of flight controllers. Gene Kranz’s book is also highly recommended.

I worked in Mission Control for 23 shuttle flights, so NASA history is important to me. 2018 is the 50th anniversary of Apollo. Bone up and be at a NASA center on December 21, 2018 to honor the first TLI. There is also a good documentary on DVD called "Mission Control." The best Apollo documentary is "For All Mankind."