I have lost track of the number of ‘how I became an astronaut’ biographies I have read. They all offer motivations, attempt to explain the inexplicable aspect of space, and offer advice – but they usually fall short when offering some nuggets for a reader who is thinking ‘Yea OK. But what about me? I wanna go too!’
“A Heart for Space“ by Eiman Jahangir resets the equation by checking in on a reader’s interest and offering a how-to user guide and self-check guidebook – with homework problems. You get into that right away.
Eiman wastes no time in describing the importance of having a dream and sticking to it – especially when the dream goes sideways. He explains how he went from being a young boy to becoming a M.D. riding a rocket into space to become an astronaut. Growing up in war torn Iran and then moving to the U.S. at a very young age, while certainly jarring, seems to have had the effect of solidifying his intentions – even if they were seemingly crazy – and even if he doubted himself from time to time.
One passage jumped out at me that should be on the cover of his book: “Whether you like it or not,the road map you draw for your life will be full of edits and reroutes; sometimes it needs to be tossed out and redrawn completely. Stay nimble. Stay eager to make changes. Uncertainty is the only certainty you have to work with”.
Eiman also makes a very, very clear point of seemingly mentioning every single person who helped him and how they helped. To borrow a line: it takes a lot of people to make one astronaut.
The book features a number of short form interviews he did with people who have taken different paths into space. Among them – Jared Isaacman, Nicole Stott, Frank White, Drew Gaffney, Kellie Gerardi, Sian Proctor – and others whose names should be familiar to readers. I have to stop here and chuckle since I know many of them. Several rather well. The inter-linkages between us all are crazy. But this is a review of Eiman’s book 😉
The emergent property of this network that Eiman and I find ourselves in is that somehow, all of us space people are drawn to each other from improbable distances and backgrounds – across generations – to the same singular … compulsion (I was going to say obsession). You tell people that you want to be an astronaut. The reactions run the gamut from ‘wow!’ to ‘huh?‘ You get used to it. And you push on.
Yet despite this clear devotion to the notion of space travel, years of trying to actually explain ‘why’ to someone outside of the space family is hard. You never quite get it out. But inside the family it simply goes unspoken. Eiman’s book is like bait on a fish hook that catches someone who needs a little encouragement to keep their dream of flying in space – or any other goal in life – alive and moving forward.
Embedded in all of the pages of this book is a growing desire to always give something back. Every single one of the people he mentioned has done this. One former astronaut (not cited in this book) once told me that his greatest accomplishment and contribution to humanity comes after the whole astronaut thing.
If you know someone who wants to travel to the stars but hasn’t quite figured out a career flight plan, this book is for them.
Sounds like an interesting read, though the review would be stronger if the reviewer didn’t feel the need to try and insert himself into the narrative.
I actually read the book, and I wrote a review of the book that I read as someone who read the book. That is what book reviews are. Suggest that you go find another website to waste your time on.