: The Lost Ray E. Boomhower INDIANA BIOGRAPHY SERIES

In the late 1950s the Soviet Union shocked the world John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the moon by placing a small satellite-Sputnik-in orbit around and returninghim safely home by the end of the . the Earth. Treated as a technological Pearl Harbor in the United States, the Russian achievement In this second volume in the Indiana Historical Society prompted the fe deral government to create a Press's Indiana Biography Series, Hoosier historian civilian organ ization, the National Aeronautics and and writer Ray E. Boomhower explores Grissom's life, Space Administration, to manage the American space fr om his days as a child playing in the fo rests of nearby program. By April 1959, NASA had selected seven Spring Mill State Park to his service as a combat pilot military test pilots to serve as the country's fi rst flying missions against Communist opponents in the in the race with the Soviets to see who skies oYer Korea. He also delves into the process by could put the first human in space. which NASA selected its original seven Mercury astro­ mults, the jostling fo r position to be the first American One of the seven Americans picked fo r this ambitious in space, Grissom 's near-fatal Liberty Bell 7 flight that effort came from the small southern Indiana com­ haunted his subsequent space career, his successful munity of Mitchell. Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom would go Gemini mission with john Yo ung, and the fa tal on to become the first man to fly in space twice and 1 fire that claimed the life of Grissom and fe llow crew to give his life in NASA's attempt to meet President members Ed and Roger .