Book picks similar to
America in Space: Nasa's First Fifty Years by Steven J. Dick
space
science
non-fiction
history
Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass and Energy
Dan Hooper - 2006
Beginning with the publication of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, through the wild revolution of quantum mechanics, and up until the physics of the modern day (including the astonishing revelation, in 1998, that the Universe is not only expanding, but doing so at an ever-quickening pace), much of what physicists have seen in our Universe suggests that much of our Universe is unseen—that we live in a dark cosmos.Everyone knows that there are things no one can see—the air you're breathing, for example, or, to be more exotic, a black hole. But what everyone does not know is that what we can see—a book, a cat, or our planet—makes up only 5 percent of the Universe. The rest—fully 95 percent—is totally invisible to us; its presence discernible only by the weak effects it has on visible matter around it.This invisible stuff comes in two varieties—dark matter and dark energy. One holds the Universe together, while the other tears it apart. What these forces really are has been a mystery for as long as anyone has suspected they were there, but the latest discoveries of experimental physics have brought us closer to that knowledge. Particle physicist Dan Hooper takes his readers, with wit, grace, and a keen knack for explaining the toughest ideas science has to offer, on a quest few would have ever expected: to discover what makes up our dark cosmos.
High Calling: The Courageous Life and Faith of Space Shuttle Columbia Commander Rick Husband
Evelyn Husband - 2003
Initially, he thought it would be neat . . . cool . . . a fun thing to do. It wasn't until he came to a spiritual crossroads and was able to give that dream up to discover the true desires of his heart before he actually got into the space shuttle program at NASA. Three failed attempts didn't daunt this driven pilot-and the fourth interview process, though lengthy and difficult, proved successful for him.Husband's years at NASA served not only to develop his integrity and character, but also to increase his faith in a Creator that could not be denied in the vastness of space. His story is not only inspirational but exhilarating and invigorating, as readers will witness the life of a man who consistently pursued the desires of his heart even as he served a faithful God.
Wrinkles in Time
George Smoot - 1993
Dr. George Smoot, a distinguished cosmologist and adventurer whose quest for cosmic knowledge had taken him from the Brazilian rain forest to the South Pole, unveiled his momentous discovery, bringing to light the very nature of the universe. For anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered, for anyone who has ever longed to pull aside the fabric of the universe for a glimpse of what lies behind it. Wrinkles in Time is the story of Smoot's search to uncover the cosmic seeds of the universe.Wrinkles in Time is the Double Helix of cosmology, an intimate look at the inner world of men and women who ask. "Why are we here?" It tells the story of George Smoot's dogged pursuit of the cosmic wrinkles in the frozen wastes of Antarctica, on mountaintops, in experiments borne aloft aboard high-altitude balloons, U-2 spy planes, and finally a space satellite. Wrinkles in Time presents the hard science behind the structured violence of the big bang theory through breathtakingly clear, lucid images and meaningful comparisons. Scientists and nonscientists alike can follow with rapt attention the story of how, in a fiery creation, wrinkles formed in space ultimately to become stars, galaxies, and even greater delicate structures. Anyone can appreciate the implications of a universe whose end is written in its beginnings - whose course developed according to a kind of cosmic DNA, which guided the universe from simplicity and symmetry to ever-greater complexity and structure. As controversial as it may seem today, Wrinkles in Time reveals truths that, in an earlier century, would have doomed its proclaimers to the fiery stake. For four thousand years some people have accepted the Genesis account of cosmic origin; for most of this century, scientists debated two rival scientific explanations known as the steady state and big bang theories. And now, Wrinkles in Time tells what really happened. The personal story behind astrophysicist George Smoot's incredible discovery of the origin of the cosmos, hailed by Stephen Hawking as "The scientific discovery of the century, if not of all time."
Landing Eagle: Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing
Michael Engle - 2019
It was a sea in name only. It was actually a bone dry, ancient dusty basin pockmarked with craters and littered with rocks and boulders. Somewhere in that 500 mile diameter basin, the astronauts would attempt to make Mankind’s first landing on the Moon. Neil Armstrong would pilot the Lunar Module “Eagle” during its twelve minute descent from orbit down to a landing. Col. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin would assist him. On the way down they would encounter a host of problems, any one of which could have potentially caused them to have to call off the landing, or, even worse, die making the attempt. The problems were all technical-communications problems, computer problems, guidance problems, sensor problems. Armstrong and Aldrin faced the very real risk of dying by the very same technical sword that they had to live by in order to accomplish the enormous task of landing on the Moon for the first time. Yet the human skills Armstrong and Aldrin employed would be more than equal to the task. Armstrong’s formidable skills as an aviator, honed from the time he was a young boy, would serve him well as he piloted Eagle down amidst a continuing series of systems problems that might have fatally distracted a lesser aviator. Armstrong’s brilliant piloting was complemented by Aldrin’s equally remarkable discipline and calmness as he stoically provided a running commentary on altitude and descent rate while handling systems problems that threatened the landing. Finally, after a harrowing twelve and a half minutes, Armstrong gently landed Eagle at “Tranquility Base”, a name he had personally chosen to denote the location of the first Moon landing. In “Landing Eagle-Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing”, author Mike Engle gives a minute by minute account of the events that occurred throughout Eagle’s descent and landing on the Moon. Engle, a retired NASA engineer and Mission Control flight controller, uses NASA audio files of actual voice recordings made inside Eagle’s cockpit during landing to give the reader an “inside the cockpit” perspective on the first Moon landing. Engle’s transcripts of these recordings, along with background material on the history and technical details behind the enormous effort to accomplish the first Moon landing, give a new and fascinating insight into the events that occurred on that remarkable day fifty years ago.
The Life of the Cosmos
Lee Smolin - 1997
In The Life of the Cosmos, Smolin cuts the Gordian knot of cosmology with a simple, powerful idea: "The underlying structure of our world, " he writes, "is to be found in the logic of evolution." Today's physicists have overturned Newton's view of the universe, yet they continue to cling to an understanding of reality not unlike Newton's own - as a clock, an intricate mechanism, governed by laws which are mathematical and eternally true. Smolin argues that the laws of nature we observe may be in part the result of a process of natural selection which took place before the big bang. Smolin's ideas are based on recent developments in cosmology, quantum theory, relativity and string theory, yet they offer, at the same time, an unprecedented view of how these developments may fit together to form a new theory of cosmology. From this perspective, the lines between the simple and the complex, the fundamental and the emergent, and even between the biological and the physical are redrawn. The result is a framework that illuminates many intractable problems, from the paradoxes of quantum theory and the nature of space and time to the problem of constructing a final theory of physics. As he argues for this new view, Smolin introduces the reader to recent developments in a wide range of fields, from string theory and quantum gravity to evolutionary theory the structure of galaxies. He examines the philosophical roots of controversies in the foundations of physics, and shows how they may be transformed as science moves towardunderstanding the universe as an interrelated, self-constructed entity, within which life and complexity have a natural place, and in which "the occurrence of novelty, indeed the perpetual birth of novelty, can be understood."
A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957 - The Space Race Begins
Michael D'Antonio - 2007
scrambled to match the Soviets and President Eisenhower intervened to guarantee that the space programme would be run by civilians and not the military.
The Mission of a Lifetime: Lessons from the Men Who Went to the Moon
Basil Hero - 2019
In rare in-depth interviews, the twelve remaining lunar explorers, for the first time, talk at length about the real right stuff; the true source of courage, leadership, and the quiet patriotism that it took to risk their lives going to the moon. Hero begins each chapter with key life lessons that readers can gain from these honorable men whom he calls the Eagles. He describes how they mastered their emotions and learned to conquer their fears through techniques that can be used from the classroom to the boardroom. More importantly their voyages to the Moon led them to the most incredible discovery of all: our home planet and its precious place in the universe. They fear for Earth's future and offer sensible solutions to its mounting crises and the path to future space exploration. In The Mission Of A Lifetime, the Eagles share their wisdom and urge us to reframe our view of Earth to theirs: no identifiable nations, borders, or races; just Earthlings working together as a collective civilization.
Human History in 50 Events: From Ancient Civilizations to Modern Times (History in 50 Events Series Book 1)
James Weber - 2015
This book is perfect for history lovers. Author James Weber did the research and compiled this huge list of events that changed the course of history forever. Some of them include: - The first civilization in Mesopotamia in 3,000 B.C. - The Norman Invasion of England in 1066 - The invention of the printing press by Johannes Guttenberg around 1450 - The French Revolution in 1789 - The first motorized airplane flight in 1903 - The Moonlanding in 1969 and many many more The book includes pictures and explanations to every event, making this the perfect resource for students and anyone wanting to broaden their knowledge in histoy. Download your copy now! Tags: history, world history, history books, history of the world, human history, world history textbook, history books for kids, earth history, geographic history, earth history kindle, human history, history books for kids age 9 12, history of the world part 1, a little history of the world, history books for kids age 7-9, history books for young readers, history books for children, history books for kindle,
Vietnam
Larry Burrows - 2002
His images, published in Life magazine, brought the war home, scorching the consciousness of the public and inspiring much of the anti-war sentiment that convulsed American society in the 1960s. To see these photo essays today, gathered in one volume and augmented by unpublished images from the Burrows archive, is to experience (or to relive), with extraordinary immediacy, both the war itself and the effect and range of Larry Burrows’s gifts—his courage: to shoot “The Air War,” he strapped himself and his camera to the open doorway of a plane . . . his reporter’s instinct: accompanying the mission of the helicopter Yankee Papa 13, he captured the transformation of a young marine crew chief experiencing the death of fellow marines . . . and his compassion: in “Operation Prairie” and “A Degree of Disillusion” he published profoundly affecting images of exhausted, bloodied troops and maimed Vietnamese children, both wounded, physically and psychologically, by the ever-escalating war.The photographs Larry Burrows took in Vietnam, magnificently reproduced in this volume, are brutal, poignant, and utterly truthful, a stunning example of photojournalism that recorded history and achieved the level of great art. Indeed, in retrospect, says David Halberstam in his moving introduction, “Larry Burrows was as much historian as photographer and artist. Because of his work, generations born long after he died will be able to witness and understand and feel the terrible events he recorded. This book is his last testament.”With 150 illustrations, 100 in full color
The Radium Girls [Excerpt]
Kate Moore - 2017
During World War I, the young women who were hired to work in America's radium watch dial factories were considered the lucky ones. They were paid well, they got to work with the luminous element dubbed "liquid sunshine" that was all the rage, and they were helping the war effort by providing instruments that shone in the dark. And their bodies literally glowed because of the amount of radium they were ingesting. In her new book, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women, author Kate Moore gives voice to two groups of workers who became horribly ill and fought back against the companies that poisoned them. Using diaries and letters from the women, their statements in court documents, medical records and archived x-rays, as well as using ancestry documents to track down their relatives for interviews, Moore showcases the forgotten young women whose legal fight led to life-changing workplace safety regulations amid one of the biggest scandals of America's twentieth century. Preorder and find out how their story ends on May 2.
Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher Von Braun
Bob Ward - 2005
Explores the life and achievements of the rocketry pioneer who designed rockets for the Nazi war effort early in his career and later became a leading figure in the American space program.
Downstairs at the White House: The story of a teenager, an Oval Office, and a ringside seat to Watergate.
Donald M. Stinson - 2017
He was also a kid who did the same kind of harebrained things most teenagers do. Only steps away from the Oval Office, he fought with a foreign head of state for space in a restroom. He devised a shortcut that tripped countless alarms and summoned an agitated band of Secret Service agents. He spilled ice water on Frank Sinatra's sock. And that was just the small stuff. A funny, fast-paced memoir, Downstairs at the White House is richly decorated with presidents, first ladies, celebrities . . . and events that shook America.
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
Brian Floca - 2009
Here for a new generation of readers and explorers are the steady astronauts, clicking themselves into gloves and helmets, strapping themselves into sideways seats. Here are their great machines in all their detail and monumentality, the ROAR of rockets, and the silence of the Moon. Here is a story of adventure and discovery—a story of leaving and returning during the summer of 1969, and a story of home, seen whole, from far away.
How to Fish
Chris Yates - 2006
How to Fish is a gem of a book that gets to the heart of the passion for angling: that there's more to fishing than catching fish.