I actually finished this book last weekend, but have found it hard to write a review. This is not because the book isn’t good – it is. It really is, it’s excellent. It has been difficult to write a review for two reasons. The first – and here I go, being all girly – I found it upsetting. You know, even before you start the first chapter, that someone is going to die. You know who, you know when and you know how. This means that throughout the entire book, you are just waiting for the moment to arise when one of Patrick Bury’s men doesn’t make it back, and the waiting is one of the many things which make the book so effective. There is a pervasive sense of something I can’t quite find words to describe as the narrative draws nearer and nearer to the inevitable – sadness, mixed with anger, trepidation and resignation. The second reason is that there is just too much to talk about. It is encyclopaedic in its breadth, covering a wide range of themes to do with war, Afghanistan and the war in Afghanistan. I’ve rewritten this review about 7 times so far.
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12 April 1981. That is the date that the first Space Shuttle lifted off marking a time in space exploration history. The Shuttle no longer flies so had a lifespan of only 30 years. The Shuttle was envisaged as a ‘taxi’ which would take astronauts and equipment into space, being re-usable it was thought that it would eventually be a case of take-off, deliver, land, refurb then back into the cycle. It proved to be a bit more complex than that with almost complete rebuilds of the Shuttles each time. Certainly they were examined thoroughly, especially after losing the first Shuttle.

Dr Baker gives an excellent history of the Shuttle from the concept phase; back in the 1960’s where scientists were looking to get craft and men to a space station on the Moon. The concept was first made public by NASA in 1968 when Head of Manned Space flight at NASA, Dr George Mueller presented a paper to the British Interplanetary Society in London. Dr Baker takes us through the phases/concepts/ideals that all went in to the final design of the Shuttle and its first flight on 12 April 1981. As ever, the overarching consideration was money, which went a long way to deciding the final concept.
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“Splendaciously mendacious rolled the brassbound man ashore” - Kipling

Danny Marks was born in 1925 in Malta and grew up against the backdrop of Grand Harbour, home of our pre-war Mediterranean Fleet in its high noon of bone-white teak and gleaming brightwork under sun-bleached awnings, a Navy where a ship was known by her immaculate boats and her Captain would suffer if it took more than eight minutes from the breakwater to the ‘G’ as she secured to her head and stern buoys.

As a teenager things were different for Danny as Malta starved under a vicious, murderous and relentless aerial assault by first Italy and then Germany. In January 1941, fluent in English, Italian and obviously Maltese, Danny started a civilian apprenticeship in the dockyard, a bomb destined for HMS Illustrious destroying his newly-issued toolkit on his first day at work.
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