Reddit reviews The Right Stuff

I agree!

We are very inconsistent about this as a society. We are fine with test pilots risking their lives. (Read The Right Stuff for lots of great examples. But then we get all freaked out when some astronauts die. Test pilots die all the time and we don't shut down our aeronautics programs. But when a handful of astronauts died in the Challenger explosion, we grounded our space program for two years. Crazy! From what I know about astronauts, there would have been plenty of volunteers to take off on the next launch day that wasn't freezing cold. (It took quite a while to determine exactly what went wrong, but people knew right away that cold was probably the root cause. In fact, the engineers had recommended against doing the launch but higher-ups over-rode them.)

When Magellan made the first voyage around the world, he lost some of his men. If we want to colonize Mars, we will lose some men. If we aren't willing to take risks, we will lose to countries who are.

Zero, The Story of Japan's Air War in the Pacific-as Seen by the Enemy: I'm trying to write something based on aviation history, for nanowrimo. This book was authored, in part, by one of the all time great aeronautical engineers, Jiro Horikoshi.

The Right Stuff: I loved the movie, as a kid.

Why the West Rules - for Now: A /r/askhistorians recommended read.

From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pear Harbor: One of the books that informed Mad Men.

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles: I'm a musician.

Living with the Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead: I'm a musician.

DisneyWar: I find Hollywood fascinating.

Painting With Light: I love film photography.

Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime: The Soviet Union was a fascinating bit of history - so much political drama and socioeconomic engineering but still with de facto Tsars.

[Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EGJ7L8U/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3P6ROMQS808NO&coliid=I1EIIL7QDPI54R): Another /r/askhistorians recommendation.

The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past: Another /r/askhistorians recommendation.

The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World): Another /r/askhistorians recommendation.