Leap of Faith

Leap of Faith: An Astronaut's Journey into the Unknown by Gordon Cooper with Bruce Henderson (Harper Collins Publishers, Hardcover, $25)

$ $ $ $ -- SHOULD BUY (Nonfiction)

So what has going into space got to do with casino gambling? Casino, nothing. Gambling, everything. Gordon Cooper, "Gordo" to his friends and adoring public, was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. His was the mission that almost cost him his life as he sailed around the globe in orbit in a severely damaged spacecraft. If you really want to talk about gambling, there is no gamble greater than risking your life sitting atop a Saturn V rocket about to launch you by fire and smoke into space. Splitting 8s against a 10 just doesn't have the same adrenaline rush.

Leap of Faith is the story of Cooper's nail-biting missions into space. It is also his reflection on the space program, his life before, during and after his historic journeys, NASA, American politics and....

...some really weird but fascinating stuff -- such as his encounters with UFOs, his relationship to a woman who received messages from some "unknown higher intelligence," and his inadvertent photographing of the mysterious Area 51 from orbit.

While the book is a little disjointed in its approach, especially at the end, it is nevertheless riveting reading. Cooper's trips into space are harrowing and awe-inspiring; his reflections on life as a test pilot and astronaut are insightful, but his UFO encounters are the stuff of science fiction -- except they happened! If you like a healthy dose of the strange-but-true in your nonfiction reading, this book supplies it aplenty.

Definitely worth reading!

Leap of Faith is available from Amazon.com in hardcover and audio cassette (abridged) editions.