Good (non-fiction) Space Reading

[Wanderfound]

Exactly as per title: what are your favourite books about real-world space flight, and why?

To begin:

Mary Roach, Packing for Mars

http://www.maryroach.net/packing-for-mars.html

Light-hearted and easy reading about the biological aspects of space travel. Food, hygiene, "waste disposal", etc. Guaranteed to make you fall over laughing at least a few times.

Dava Sobel, A More Perfect Heaven

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2011/3262.html

A comprehensive history of the life of Copernicus, drawing heavily upon primary sources. Dava Sobel is always worth the read; check out Galileo's Daughter as well.

Deborah Cadbury, Space Race

http://www.universetoday.com/1017/book-review-space-race/

A history of the parallel development of the early days of the US and USSR space programs, with a focus on the personalities of the designers involved. Korolev was a dude.

What else have you got?

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[Red Iron Crown]

Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. The first really insightful look into the fighter jock/test pilot mentality mixed with lots of interesting anecdotes from the early US space program. The movie is good, the book is better.

Gene Kranz's Failure Is Not An Option. Great narrative by one of the key people in Mission Control during the Apollo days.

[Nikolai]

Michael Collins' Carrying the Fire. A very down-to-Earth perspective on Apollo that still manages to excite and intrigue.

Deke Slayton and Michael Cassutt's Deke!. A no-nonsense history of the space program from someone deep inside. It's not a quick read -- rather than a singular narrative, it's a bunch of quick things thrown together -- but it's highly informative.

Roger Bilstein's Stages to Saturn. This scratches my technical-details itch, explaining how the major decisions in designing the United States' Moon rocket were made.

[Wanderfound]

Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. The first really insightful look into the fighter jock/test pilot mentality mixed with lots of interesting anecdotes from the early US space program.

If you like test pilot stuff, I can't recommend highly enough Jeffrey Quill's Spitfire and Alex Henshaw's Sigh for a Merlin.

Quill was the lead development test pilot for the Spitfire; Henshaw was the head production test pilot. Brilliant pilots both of them, and gripping books.

Incidentally, the Spitfire was named after a Spanish ship captured by Francis Drake named Cagafuego. "Spitfire" isn't quite an exact translation...