Admiral Naismith of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, is a young man of many parts.Miles and his handsome cousin Ivan are called upon to play a simple diplomatic role on the capital world of Barrayar's old enemy until murder and deceit thrust them into Cetagandan internal politics at the highest levels, and Miles discovers the secrets of the haut-women's biological domain to be very complicated indeed.Commander Elli Quinn, sent by Miles on the trail of those secrets, meets a man who marches to the beat of a very different drummer. Dr. Ethan Urquhart, obstetrician from a planet forbidden to women, is on a quest at cross-purposes to Elli's mission - or is it?Consequences of Cetagandan bioengineering continue to play out, this time on a Dendrii sortie to the crime planet of Jackson's Whole. When he encounters a genetically altered super-soldier, Miles's routine rescue strike takes a sudden hard turn for the unanticipated.Contents: CetagandaEthan of AthosLabyrinth.

    This lively story captures George’s adventure of becoming the first space monkey from the classic Curious George Gets a Medal.

    The first NASA flight director, Kraft emerged from boyhood in small-town America to become a visionary who played an integral role in what would become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It's all here, from the legendary Mercury missions that first sent Americans into space through the Gemini and Apollo missions that landed them on the moon. The great heroes of space are here, too-Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Buzz Aldrin-leading the space race that would change the course of U.S. history. From NASA's infancy to its greatest triumphs . . . from the calculated gambles to the near disasters to the pure luck that accompanied each mission, Flight relives the spellbinding events that captured the imagination of the world. It is a stirring tribute to the U.S. space program and to the men who risked their lives to take America on a flight into the unknown-from the man who was there for it all. "A highly readable memoir." (The New York Times Book Review) "A rewarding look at the brief, shining moment when space pathfinders held sway over space warriors." (The Washington Post)

    For now the Kezdai -- a newly encountered species with war at the center of their philosophy -- have taken to arms against the Concordiat and its colony worlds. For war, the Terrans have only one answer:Break out the BolosSelf-aware robotic tanks, the Bolos have fought bravely and well since the days when humans fought each other. Now they battle across the stars to defend us all...and though the times are perilous, we've never been in better hands than those of our old metal guardians: Keith Laumer's greatest creation, the Bolos.Includes:Incursion by by Mark ThiesRook's gambit by by John MinaThe sky is falling by by J. Steven York & Dan Wesley SmithBrothers by by William H. Keith, Jr.

    Kelly gives a firsthand account of designing, building, testing, and flying the Apollo lunar module. It was, he writes, "an aerospace engineer's dream job of the century." Kelly's account begins with the imaginative process of sketching solutions to a host of technical challenges with an emphasis on safety, reliability, and maintainability. He catalogs numerous test failures, including propulsion-system leaks, ascent-engine instability, stress corrosion of the aluminum alloy parts, and battery problems, as well as their fixes under the ever-present constraints of budget and schedule. He also recaptures the exhilaration of hearing Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong report that "The Eagle has landed," and the pride of having inadvertently provided a vital "lifeboat" for the crew of the disabled Apollo 13.

    Its 384 levels and thousands of staff members are supposedly able to meet the needs of the any conceivable alien patient - though that capacity is always being strained as more (and stranger) alien races turn up to join the galactic community. Sentient viruses, interspecies romances, undreamed-of institutional catering problems - it all lands on Sector General's doorstep. And the only thing weirder than a hitherto unknown alien species is having a member of that alien species turn up in your Emergency Room."--BOOK JACKET.

    Not until the nineteenth century would three men, armed with the best telescopes of their age, race to conquer this astronomical Everest. Parallax tells the fast-moving story of their contest, which ended in a dead heat. Against a sweeping backdrop filled with kidnappings, dramatic rescue, swordplay, madness, and bitter rivalry, Alan W. Hirshfeld brings to life the heroes -- and heroines -- of this remarkable chapter in history. Characters include the destitute boy plucked from a collapsed building who grew up to become the world's greatest telescope maker; the hot-tempered Dane whose nose was lopped off in a duel over mathematics; a merchant's apprentice forced to choose between the lure of money and his passion for astronomy; and the musician who astounded the world by discovering a new planet from his own backyard.Generously illustrated with period engravings and paintings, Parallax is an unforgettable ride through time and space.

    Cartoon illustrations accompany the text to retell the story of the Big Bang, evolution, dinosaurs and the beginning of mankind. Events are explained in simple terms with statistics and timelines included.

    Jeffrey Green's work "mirrors the eternal realities of the soul," according to the leading Danish astrology magazine Stjernerne. Sting calls Steven Forrest's work "as intelligent and cogent as it is poetic." Based on the transcripts of a series of workshops that Green and Forrest gave together, this book pushes the ancient symbols of astrology to new heights of insight, lucidly and compellingly showing us how the soul's long history is reflected in the birthchart. Beneath the seeming randomness of life, there is a clear and meaningful order. Measuring the Night provides the Rosetta Stone for unraveling it. The lecture format is warm, personal and informal, with lots of audience interaction. Forrest and Green team up to analyze the chart of a workshop participant volunteer, just as they would that of a client who had come for a reading. About the Authors Steven Forrest has been a professional astrologer for over 27 years, with a very full client load and a lecture schedule that takes him across North America. Steven runs astrological apprenticeship groups in CA and MO. He wrote the bestselling astrology books The Inner Sky, The Changing Sky, The Night Speaks, The Book of Pluto, and with his wife, fellow astrologer and novelist Jodie Forrest, Skymates. He wrote Elle's astrology column in 1995 and has been featured on the network TV show "Alive and Wellness." He has a degree in religion from the University of NC. With his wife Jodie, he founded and runs Alpha Lyra Consulting. The Forrests live in the NC woods, where Steven entertains himself, when not working, with his guitars and his garden. Jeffrey Wolf Green has spent over 23 years as a professional astrologer. He has counseled over eighteen thousand clients and maintains an extremely busy practice. A Viet Nam veteran, Jeffrey has lectured throughout Europe, the United States, Canada and Israel. He is the author of the bestselling Llewellyn astrology books Pluto: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul; Pluto: The Soul's Evolution through Relationships, and also of Uranus: Freedom from the Known. Jeffrey founded and runs the Evolutionary School of Astrology, with branches in the United States,

    How their personal experiences of exile or diaspora translate into cinema is a key focus of Naficy's work. Although the experience of expatriation varies greatly from one person to the next, the films themselves exhibit stylistic similarities, from their open- and closed-form aesthetics to their nostalgic and memory-driven multilingual narratives, and from their emphasis on political agency to their concern with identity and transgression of identity. The author explores such features while considering the specific histories of individuals and groups that engender divergent experiences, institutions, and modes of cultural production and consumption. Treating creativity as a social practice, he demonstrates that the films are in dialogue not only with the home and host societies but also with audiences, many of whom are also situated astride cultures and whose desires and fears the filmmakers wish to express.Comparing these films to Hollywood films, Naficy calls them accented. Their accent results from the displacement of the filmmakers, their alternative production modes, and their style. Accented cinema is an emerging genre, one that requires new sets of viewing skills on the part of audiences. Its significance continues to grow in terms of output, stylistic variety, cultural diversity, and social impact. This book offers the first comprehensive and global coverage of this genre while presenting a framework in which to understand its intricacies.

    Raymo's commentaries amplify the maps, offering intriguing details and tips on identifying stars, planets, and constellations.On another level, Chet Raymo challenges our imagination-to see what is unseeable in the universe, to perceive distance and size and shape that is inconceivable, to appreciate ever more fully our extraordinary place in the cosmos. His elegant essays on the heavens blend science and history, mythology and religion, making clear why he is one of the most insightful and passionate science writers of our time.

    This giant volume, filled with the latest and most magnificent images to be sent back from Curiosity, will walk you in the footsteps of the NASA probes and rovers that have been surveying the planet from 1964 until the present day. Experience its other-worldly beauty as you hover over sinister dust devils, immense icecaps and textured rock formations. Mars charts an incredible course across this unfamiliar planet, depicting all sides, seasons, channels and chasms, from the North Pole to the Southern Highlands. Witness the soaring heights of Olympus Mons - the tallest volcano in the Solar System - watch a giant dust storm tear through the canyons of the Valles Marineris, and explore the broad valleys of Chryse Planitia, scarred from catastrophic floods. Detailed and accessible essays explain how Mars was formed, shedding light on its internal and external structure, weather systems and unique geographical features, as well as on the compelling evidence of water and microscopic life. Each image is accompanied by a caption that explains in unparalleled detail the abstract patterns and peculiar geology that form this majestic planet. Featuring over 200 spectacular photographs and informative colour diagrams, an atlas of the surface and details of the most recent scientific discoveries, Mars is the perfect introduction to the Red Planet. Ideal for: Perfect book for all astronomy enthusiasts. This hardback book has 224 pages and measures: 43 x 36 x 3cm

    This work includes coverage of space flight, the design process, with integrated multimedia that provides animations and QuickTime movies, and Matlab based simulations.

    Arranged in three Sections, "The Theoreticians," "The Entertainers," and "The Real Stuff," it presents an amazing collection of 75 designs and their stories - from Tsiolkovsky and Oberth's engineering papers, through the golden age of movie science fiction, up to the present day's Lockheed "VentureStar" and Rotary Rocket "Roton." Spaceflight historian Hagerty delves into the background story behind each design, examining the motivations of the designers in the context of the times in which they lived. The book's selection of these historically important Spaceships has a twist; none of these Spacecraft ever flew! However, from the information presented, we can see their importance to the development of Spaceships that did fly, and also on the world we live in. Each entry has a wealth of background information. For example, in the "The Theoreticians" section, we see illustrator Chesley Bonestell's wonderful artwork that appeared in Willy Ley's Conquest of Space, a book that accurately predicted space flight years ahead of its time. Plate XLI from this book, shows the Arizona Meteor Crater superimposed over Manhattan Island (with the crater centered roughly on Times Square). Today, it bears a disconcerting similarity to the September 11th terrorist attacks. However, Bonestell's illustration was done over 50 years ago to show the danger of Earth-crossing asteroids. In "The Entertainers," section, the 1930's comic strips and movie serials of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon get their just due. Not only did they affect a whole generation of future NASA engineers, the influence of streamlined design began with these ships. The baby boomer crowd will find that Captain Video, Space Patrol, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, and others from 1950's live TV space opera shows are included. Also from that era, George Pal's great science fiction films "Destination Moon," "Wh

    The book explains the wide variety of physical, chemical and geological processes that govern the motions and properties of planets. Observations of the planets, moons, asteroids, comets and planetary rings in our Solar System, as well as extrasolar planets, are described, and the process of planetary formation is discussed.

    Did the military recover a crashed "flying saucer" there, along with several extraterrestrial bodies? Has the government gone to great lengths to hide the evidence? Over time these speculations have reached the status of unquestionable truths in the minds of many ufologists.In this definitive study of the Roswell incident, longtime UFO researcher Karl T. Pflock-who is convinced that some UFO reports are real alien sightings-concludes, after an exhaustive investigation, that no alien craft or bodies were ever found at Roswell. Pflock admits at the outset that he too once strongly believed there might be something to the Roswell alien stories, and he describes how he then came to discover the whole truth. Using formerly classified records he proves that the U.S. government has absolutely no physical evidence of aliens, shows how critical weather data completely refute key claims of Roswell believers, and explains why the case now rises and falls on the testimony of just one witness, who cleverly manipulated leading investigators and continues to do so today.Pflock's intensive research and access to once-classified documents-including facsimilies of important formerly classified documents, 28 witness affidavits, and the entire Pratt-Marcel interview transcript-make this book must reading even for UFO buffs-believers and skeptics alike- who feel they know everything about Roswell.

    As we laid out the plans for flying the first manned spaceflight program, it was obvious that we would require exten- sive operations around the earth. One of the most challenging features of this plan was to build a world-wide network of tracking stations to provide communications with the orbiting spacecraft. At the time, about 1958 and 59, the construction of these facilities, in what turned out to be some very interesting pieces of geography, was a tremendous task. Christopher C. Kroft, Jr. Australia is located roughly 180 degrees longitude from the launch site, Cape Canaveral, and so occupied not only a unique position but a very critical one. Determining the position of the spacecraft as it traversed the Australian continent was critical to the orbit determination. This set of parameters was necessary to properly manage the entire operation. Such things as the time of retrofire, paramount to recovery of the crew, and the information required for signal acquisition at each of the tracking sites around the world are but two examples. Also, because the status of the astronaut and the spaceship were extremely critical to the deci- sion-making process, the stations down under provided vital data to evalu- ate the progress and to allow the flight control team to manage the problems that inevitably developed.

    At one time, the programme was as sophisticated as those in the US and Russia. The projects were cancelled one by one as Britain's attempts to keep up militarily with the two superpowers weakened, as a consequence of Treasury pressure and the belief that there was no economic future in space technology.Much of the material in this invaluable book has never been available before, due partly to the 30-Year Rule concerning government documents, and partly to the sensitive military nature of the work. The projects covered include rocket-propelled aircraft, large military missiles such as the medium range ballistic missile Blue Streak, the test rocket Black Knight and the re-entry experiments it carried, and the satellite launcher Black Arrow. In addition, proposed projects that could have been developed from these vehicles are covered in depth. There is also considerable political analysis of why these projects were eventually discontinued.

    From seeing myriad dots of different brightnesses, we haved moved on to measure their distances, temperatures, sizes, chemical compositions, and even ages, finding both young and ancient stars that dwarf our Sun and are dwarfed by it. Unique in its approach, Extreme Stars describes the lives of stars from a new perspective by examining their amazing features. The result is a refreshing, up-to-date, and engaging overview of stellar evolution, suitable for everyone interested in viewing or studying the stars. Ten chapters, generously illustrated throughout, explain the natures of the brightest, the largest, the hottest, and the youngest, among other kinds of stars, ending with a selection of the strangest stars the Universe has to offer. Extreme Stars shows how stars develop and die and how each extreme turns into another under the inexorable twin forces of time and gravity. James B. Kaler is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He has held Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships, has been awarded medals for his work from the University of Liege in Belgium and the University of Mexico, and most recently was selected to give the Armand Spitz lecture by the Great Lakes Planetarium Association. His research area, in which he has published over 100 papers, involves dying stars. Kaler has also written for a variety of popular magazines, including Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, and Scientific American. His previous books include The Ever-Changing Sky (Cambridge, 1996), Stars and their Spectra (Cambridge, 1997), Cosmic Clouds (Scientific American Library Paperback, 1998), and The Little Book of Stars (Copernicus, 2000). He is a current member of the Board of Directors of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and is a frequent guest on radio and television shows.

    Your head tilts back, your eyes rise up, and you find yourself gazing at the stars . . . WOW! From the beginning of time, people have admired the night sky's beauty.The night sky is our oldest picture book, and Wishing on a Star retells some of these stories from around the world in simple language that kids can understand.

    Visionary illustrations have graced magazines, including Analog and Fantasy & Science Fiction, as well as book jackets, films, and TV. This superb collection includes Challenge of the Stars with Patrick Moore in 1972 and the 1999 work Millennium Planet, depicting a newly discovered extrasolar world. A must-have for all space and SF enthusiasts.

    Find out about our world and the amazing worlds in space, from prehistoric life to the search for alien life, from violent tornadoes to giant storms on Jupiter. There are quiz questions galore, and amazing facts to astound you. Have you ever wondered where space begins or when life on earth began? Who were the very first humans? What makes thunder rumble? Which robot explored Mars? In this book, curious young readers can learn the answers to these questions and many more.

    Each cleverly-illustrated page shows a host of characters big and small, whispering and shouting, silly and scary--just pull the tab and the opposite appears!

    Cosmic Horizons illuminates the most recent discoveries of modern astrophysics with essays by leading astronomers, including NASA scientists. The book also features profiles of astronomers such as Carl Sagan and Georges Lemaître (father of the Big Bang theory), case studies that cover the controversial evidence for the possibility of life on Mars, and stunning four-color photographs throughout. Written for the general reader, Cosmic Horizons makes the complex, abstract areas of astronomy and astrophysics—from the Big Bang to black holes—accessible and comprehensible to the public. Complementing the museum's acclaimed new Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center exhibition, the book investigates how the universe expands to produce galaxies, stars, and planets, and, perhaps, life on other worlds. It also examines some of the emerging technologies that make these discoveries possible. With more than eighty full-color images and a resource section that includes a bibliography and an extensive glossary, Cosmic Horizons offers a new appreciation of the complexities of time and space and a greater understanding of our fragile planet and the universe beyond. Four-color illustrations throughout. The New Press is pleased to announce the publication of this new title with the American Museum of Natural History, a collaboration that began with the publication of Epidemic! in 2000. Founded in 1869, the American Museum of Natural History in New YorkCity is one of the world's preeminent institutions for scientific research and education, visited by more than four million people annually. Three new titles, Earth, The Biodiversity Crisis, and Cosmic Horizons, are companion volumes to three major new permanent exhibitions at the museum: the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, the Hall of Biodiversity, and the Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space. Author Biography: Steven Soter is a member of the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History. He was a cowriter, with Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, of the Cosmos television series, and co-author with Ann Druyan of the new Hayden Planetarium's inaugural sky show. Neil de Grasse Tyson is director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium. He has authored five books on the universe, including The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist. He is also a monthly columnist for Natural History magazine and was the project scientist for the Hall of the Universe in the Rose Center for Earth and Space.

    In Leaving the Planet authors Rex Hall and Dave Shayler review this Soviet demonstration of technological progress. The text examines both the developmental and operational aspects of the missions, which at the time were clouded in secrecy. This fascinating and important text features a significant amount of new material on the spacecraft, as well as the history, design and development of the launch vehicle. It also includes the full story of the men and women who trained for these missions, some of whom never flew.

    During the next two decades, more than 1,600 spacecraft of all varieties were launched, mostly into the earth's orbit In addition, twelve men walked on the moon and returned home. By the end of the 1980s, there were more than 300 operational spacecraft and thousands of orbiting objects, mostly the spent, upper stages of launch vehicles and inert spacecraft. The Encyclopedia of Space Vehicles uses a combination of high-quality photos, illustrations, fact tables, and authoritative text to describe all the vehicles and equipment used in space, past and present. It covers all types of rockets, satellites, and probes, as well as their equipment and cargo, such as radio transmitters, measuring instruments, and cameras.

    Using official NASA documentation and interviews with the astronauts and key personnel, the inside story of Skylab is presented as the story unfolds. An evaluation of the lessons learnt from the programme and how these were, or were not, incorporated into the Space Shuttle and Space Station programme is also offered to present the value of Skylab in the context of the current programme, 25 years after the last crew came home.