Rocketman

HE WAS THE THIRD MAN TO WALK ON THE MOON— BUT THE FIRST TO DANCE ON IT. HE WAS THE ROCKETMAN. For Pete Conrad, it was all about the ride. Whether he was hot-dogging at Mach 2, test-flying every supersonic jet the Navy developed (and some they shouldn’t have), orbiting the Earth at almost 20,000 mph, or redlining his Corvette, he loved pushing the envelope. Pete wasn’t the squeaky-clean astronaut poster boy. The guy every NASA pilot wanted to happy-hour with after work—and would kill to fly with—Pete had a natural outspokenness that got him washed out of the Mercury program. But the “Comeback Kid” came roaring back—flying two Gemini missions, walking on the Moon as commander of Apollo 12, commanding the first Skylab, and logging more time in space than all the original astronauts combined. This is a surprisingly candid insider’s view of the greatest ride in history: America’s glorious race to the stars, as seen through the eyes of a real space cowboy.