Reviewed by Sarah Bean the Green Bean Teen Queen for TeensReadToo.com
Scott MacLeod is about to become the youngest astronaut in NASA, only no one is supposed to know about it. His mission is a secret one that not even NASA will talk about or the other astronauts know about.
It all started when Scott's dad, who is an Air Force pilot, started teaching Scott to fly. Scott is only twelve, so when he is able to crash land an Air Force plane, one he shouldn't have even known how to fly, NASA takes notice.
NASA is trying to land a man on the moon, but many things could go wrong and there are still lots of questions that need to be answered before that ambition can really take off. So, before the real astronauts left on the Apollo missions, NASA had been sending secret test missions into space. These missions, which used chimps as astronauts, were called Caliban.
When the chimp pilot for the latest Caliban mission goes crazy, NASA recruits Scott to fly the shuttle. The shuttles are made smaller, so who better to pilot them than a twelve-year-old boy? But, NASA has secrets about the training of the chimps and Scott isn't sure he can go along with the mission as planned.
Several times during the reading of this book, I had to remind myself that this was fiction and not a true story. There is a lot of adventure, from Scott's Air Force flying to the space program. There is a lot of technical jargon as well, dealing with Scott's training and then his mission in space, which might turn off some readers. If you're a fan of space exploration this book provides an interesting perspective on the 1960's space race.
Scott MacLeod is about to become the youngest astronaut in NASA, only no one is supposed to know about it. His mission is a secret one that not even NASA will talk about or the other astronauts know about.
It all started when Scott's dad, who is an Air Force pilot, started teaching Scott to fly. Scott is only twelve, so when he is able to crash land an Air Force plane, one he shouldn't have even known how to fly, NASA takes notice.
NASA is trying to land a man on the moon, but many things could go wrong and there are still lots of questions that need to be answered before that ambition can really take off. So, before the real astronauts left on the Apollo missions, NASA had been sending secret test missions into space. These missions, which used chimps as astronauts, were called Caliban.
When the chimp pilot for the latest Caliban mission goes crazy, NASA recruits Scott to fly the shuttle. The shuttles are made smaller, so who better to pilot them than a twelve-year-old boy? But, NASA has secrets about the training of the chimps and Scott isn't sure he can go along with the mission as planned.
Several times during the reading of this book, I had to remind myself that this was fiction and not a true story. There is a lot of adventure, from Scott's Air Force flying to the space program. There is a lot of technical jargon as well, dealing with Scott's training and then his mission in space, which might turn off some readers. If you're a fan of space exploration this book provides an interesting perspective on the 1960's space race.
