Kelly, Scott and Margaret Lazarus Dean.

After comparison to Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff as an influence on the author: Another noted inspiration is the book after which Kelly named his own, and which he carries with him on multiple voyages to the International Space Station: “Endurance,” by Alfred Lansing, about Ernest Shackleton’s historic expedition to the South Pole, during which his crew cheated death after their ship became trapped in a polar pack ice, overcoming 850 miles of heavy seas on small lifeboats [not true] … Lansing’s account is a stark reminder that along with the rock-star image of the explorer comes the omnipresent specter of death. …