Hal Povenmire

What on earth was this?

The book is an unorganized mess. First of all, it is nothing but anecdotes and little stories about the space and missile programs. Most of these stories sound like the kind of thing that get passed around at the water cooler. No attribution or source given for any of them. And he repeats himself. Over and over and over. There's no semblance of an order. Not even chronological. In the text, he makes it clear which political party he finds distasteful and he makes disparaging comments about people in different minority groups. Definitely cringeworthy. He does mention the Navaho program a couple of times (not in a very flattering light), but he misspells Navaho every single time.

The author's bio and obit say that he did some really neat things in life, like working on Project Mercury, the Apollo program (specifically Apollo 11) and worked with Dr. Hynek on Project Blue Book. I want to read that story! Tell me what you did for Projects Mercury and Apollo. How did you get involved with Dr. Hynek? That would have been an interesting story! Sadly, there's none of that here. Barely a mention of the author, and certainly nothing about the accomplishments and achievements of his life. All we get is page after page of repetitive anecdotes about spaceflight.

The author passed away recently, and he seems to have been well liked and respected. I think it is very sad that we didn't get a cohesive story of his life, just this mess of a book. I can't say I would recommend this to anyone.… (más)

Not terribly well written, and self-published; something of a shame, really, because The Encyclopedia of Cosmic Close Encounters provides a reasonably – well, encyclopedic – treatment of various meteorite falls, especially those that hit buildings, cars, or otherwise came close to people. The main problem with the book is the mix of popular and technical. Most of the reports seem to be summaries of newspaper accounts, with the usual lay misconceptions about meteorites being radioactive or hot to the touch; although Povenmire debunks these briefly in his introduction, someone picking up the book and thumbing through it would probably get wrong ideas. At the same time, Povenmire describes the mineralogy of every meteorite (“olivine hypersthene chrondite L5 S3”) without bothering to explain what any of that means. Picked up, appropriately enough, at Meteor Crater in Arizona (which does a good job with the museum but could use a better bookstore).… (más)