US President Nixon called it the greatest week since creation. In the most authoritative book ever written about Apollo, David Whitehouse reveals the true drama behind the mission, telling the story in the words of those who took part – based around exclusive interviews with the key players. This enthralling book takes us from the early rocket pioneers to the shock America received from the Soviets’ launch of the first satellite, Sputnik; from the race to put the first person into space, through President Kennedy’s enthusiasm and later doubts, to the astronauts’ intense competition to leave the first footprint.In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the moon landing, here is the story as told by the crew of Apollo 11 and the many other astronauts who paved the way or followed themselves after the first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong, alongside Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Astronauts, engineers, politicians, NASA officials, Soviet rivals – all tell their own story of a great moment of human achievement.

    He flew six space missions in three different programs—more than any other human. He served with NASA for more than four decades. His peers called him the “astronaut’s astronaut.”          Enthusiasts of space exploration have long waited for John Young to tell the story of his two Gemini flights, his two Apollo missions, the first-ever Space Shuttle flight, and the first Spacelab mission. Forever Young delivers all that and more: Young’s personal journey from engineering graduate to fighter pilot, to test pilot, to astronaut, to high NASA official, to clear-headed predictor of the fate of Planet Earth.          Young, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James Hansen, recounts the great episodes of his amazing flying career in fascinating detail and with wry humor. He portrays astronauts as ordinary human beings and NASA as an institution with the same ups and downs as other major bureaucracies. He frankly discusses the risks of space travel, including what went wrong with the Challenger and Columbia shuttles.          Forever Young is one of the last memoirs produced by an early American astronaut. It is the first memoir written by a chief of the NASA astronaut corps. Young’s experiences and candor make this book indispensable to everyone interested in the U.S. space program.

    As huge as the Pantheon of Rome and as heavy as the Statue of Liberty, this magnificent instrument is so precisely built that its seventeen-foot mirror was hand-polished to a tolerance of 2/1,000,000 of an inch. The telescope's construction drove some to the brink of madness, made others fearful that mortals might glimpse heaven, and transfixed an entire nation. Ronald Florence weaves into his account of the creation of "the perfect machine" a stirring chronicle of the birth of Big Science and a poignant rendering of an America mired in the depression yet reaching for the stars.

    They are found on the Moon, where fifty-six miles of car tracks lie nearly perfectly preserved, etched into the lunar landscape almost exactly as they were left nearly a half-century ago. The ends of these trails mark the farthest extremes to which mankind has ventured, the limits of a species that was born to wander.The tracks were left by crews of the last three manned missions to the Moon—Apollos 15, 16, and 17. Over the decades since, the achievements of these astronauts have dimmed in the shadow cast by the first Moon landing, Apollo 11. But as Earl Swift brilliantly uncovers, in so many ways the earlier missions were but a prelude for the final acts; for while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin trod a chunk of flat lunar plain smaller than a football field, the final three Apollos each commanded a mountainous area the size of Manhattan—traveling miles across the broken, desolate lunar surface, conducting experiments, and collecting more than a quarter-ton of prized geologic samples. Often treated as little more than historical footnotes, they were the true explorers of the Moon. And they succeeded for one very American reason: they drove.So-called “Moon cars” had been the stuff of science fiction since before the Wright brothers flew. But it was only after World War II that engineers and scientists took up the challenge of how to move astronauts and equipment across extraterrestrial landscapes. The result was the Lunar Roving Vehicle—a true engineering marvel that was developed piecemeal through the late 1950s and 1960s, deployed on the final three Apollo missions, and revolutionized the exploration of the moon.In this fast-moving exploration of the lunar rover and the scientific discoveries it enabled, Swift puts the reader alongside the men who dreamed of the rover, designed it, troubleshot its flaws, and drove it on the lunar surface. Finally shining a deserved spotlight on these overlooked yet crucial missions and the fascinating characters involved in them, Across the Airless Wilds is a celebration of human genius, perseverance, and daring.

    Whenever America wanted to peer inside the Soviet Union, it launched a U-2, which flew too high to be shot down. But Sergei Korolev, Russia's chief rocket designer, had a riposte: an artificial satellite that would orbit the earth and cross American skies at will. On October 4, 1957, the launch of Korolev's satellite, Sputnik, stunned the world.In Red Moon Rising, Matthew Brzezinski takes us inside the Kremlin, the White House, secret military facilities, and the halls of Congress to bring to life the Russians and Americans who feared and distrusted their compatriots as much as their superpower rivals. Drawing on original interviews and new documentary sources from both sides of the Cold War divide, he shows how Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower were buffeted by crises of their own creation, leaving the door open to ambitious politicians and scientists to squabble over the heavens and the earth. It is a story rich in the paranoia of the time, with combatants that included two future presidents, survivors of the gulag, corporate chieftains, rehabilitated Nazis, and a general who won the day by refusing to follow orders.Sputnik set in motion events that led not only to the moon landing but also to cell phones, federally guaranteed student loans, and the wireless Internet. Red Moon Rising recounts the true story of the birth of the space age in dramatic detail, bringing it to life as never before.

    It was to be a routine mission, the 4th of seven trips to Mir that NASA astronauts would take as dress rehearsals for the two countries' partnership in a new Intern'l Space Station they were building back on Earth. But there'd been bad omens: a Moscow psychic who predicted a mysterious disaster; a Russian doctor who warned that the crew was psychologically incompatible. Within two weeks the omens were borne out, as the three were suddenly forced to fight the worst fire in space history. This was only the beginning of what became the most dangerous mission in the 36-year history of manned space travel--a 6-month misadventure that would climax in the most harrowing accident faced in space since Apollo 13. In Dragonfly, bestselling author Burrough tells the story of how a joint Russian-American crew narrowly survived almost every trauma imaginable: fire, power blackouts, chemical leaks, docking failures, nail-biting spacewalks & constant mechanical breakdowns, all climaxing in a dramatic midspace collision that left all on board scrambling for their lives. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with the cosmonauts, astronauts, ground controllers, psychologists & scientists involved, Dragonfly is the saga of a mission as fraught with political & bureaucratic intrigues as any DC potboiler. Using never-before-released internal NASA memoranda, flight logs & debriefings, Burrough portrays a US space program in which many astronauts refuse to raise safety concerns for fear they'll be frozen out of future missions. It offers an unprecedented look inside the rattletrap Russian space program, where the desperate thirst for hard currency leads to safety shortcuts as exhausted, puppetlike cosmonauts endure inhuman pressures from their unfeeling, all-powerful masters on the ground. In Dragonfly, the American astronauts who journeyed to Mir speak out about the failings of the program, from the rigors of training at Russia's Star City military base to the slapdash experiments they were required to perform. Yet thru it all the men & women of the two space programs persevered, forging friendships that will serve them well as the two countries prepare for the 1st launches of the Intern'l Space Station in late 1998. Theirs is a story of a triumph over adversity, destined to be one of the most enduring & widely celebrated adventure stories of our time.

    A riveting account of three heroic astronauts who took one of the most dangerous space flights ever, from the New York Times bestselling author of Shadow Divers. In early 1968, the Apollo program was on shaky footing. President Kennedy's end-of-decade deadline to put a man on the Moon was in jeopardy, and the Soviets were threatening to pull ahead in the space race. By August 1968, with its back against the wall, NASA decided to scrap its usual methodical approach and shoot for the heavens. With just four months to prepare--a fraction of the normal time--the agency would send the first men in history to the Moon. In a year of historic violence and discord--the Tet offensive, the assassinations of MLK and RFK, the Chicago DNC riots--the Apollo 8 mission was the boldest test of what America could do. With a focus on astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, and their wives and children, this is a vivid, gripping, you-are-there narrative that shows anew the epic danger involved, and the singular bravery it took, for man to leave Earth for the first time--and to arrive at a new world.

    Tom Stafford attained the highest speed ever reached by a test pilot (28,547 mph), carried a cosmonaut’s coffin with Soviet Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, led the team that designed the sequence of missions leading to the original lunar landing, and drafted the original specifications for the B-2 stealth bomber on a piece of hotel stationery. But his crowning achievement was surely his role as America’s unofficial space ambassador to the Soviet Union during the darkest days of the Cold War.In this lively memoir written with Michael Cassutt, Stafford begins by recounting his early successes as a test pilot, Gemini and Apollo astronaut, and USAF general. As President Nixon's stand-in at the 1971 Soviet funeral for three cosmonauts, he opened the door to the possibility of cooperation in space between Russians and Americans. Stafford's Apollo-Soyuz team was the first group of Americans to work at the cosmonaut training center, and also the first to visit Baikonur, the top-secret Soviet launch center, in 1974. His 17 July 1975 “handshake in space” with Soviet commander Alexei Leonov (who became a lifelong friend) proved to the world that the two opposing countries could indeed work successfully together. Stafford has continued in this leadership role right up to the present, participating in designing and evaluating the Space Shuttle, Mir, and the International Space Station. He is truly an American hero who personifies the broadest spirit of exploration and cooperation.

    In superb graphic detail, with hundreds of plans, illustrations, and diagrams, this comprehensive resource presents and entire library's worth of essential design data for residential development.

    Thompson tells the dramatic story of one of the most successful research aircraft ever flown. The first full-length account of the X-15 program, the book profiles the twelve test pilots (Neil Armstrong, Joe Engle, Scott Crossfield, and the author among them) chosen for the program. Thompson has translated a highly technical subject into readable accounts of each pilot's participation, including many heroic and humorous anecdotes and highlighting the pilots' careers after the program ended in 1968.

    Filled with data about the Earth, Moon, the planets, the stars, our Galaxy, and the myriad galaxies in deep space, it also reveals the latest scientific discoveries about black holes, quasars, and the origins of the Universe. Written by a premier astronomy expert, this book begins with a discussion of the Sun, from sunspots to solar eclipses. It then features over 100 tables on characteristics of the Moon, and the names, positions, sizes, and other key descriptors of all the planets and their satellites. The book tabulates solar and lunar eclipse, comets, close-approach asteroids, and significant meteor showers dates. Twenty-four maps show the surface features of the planets and their moons. The author then looks to the stars, their distances and movements, and their detailed classification and evolution. Forty-eight star charts cover both northern and southern hemispheres, enabling you to track down and name the main stars in all the constellations. The maps are supported by detailed tables of the names, positions, magnitudes, and spectra of the main stars in each constellation, along with key data on galaxies, nebulae, and clusters. There is a useful catalogue of the world's great telescopes and observatories, a history of astronomy and of space research, and biographies of 250 astronomers who have been most influential in developing the current understanding of the subject.

    space program. In this meticulously researched and vividly written life, Michael J. Neufeld gives us a man of profound moral complexities, glorified as a visionary and vilified as a war criminal, a man whose brilliance and charisma were coupled with an enormous and, some would say, blinding ambition.As one of the leading developers of rocket technology for the German army, von Braun yielded to pressure to join the Nazi Party in 1937 and reluctantly became an SS officer in 1940. During the war, he supervised work on the V-2s, which were assembled by starving slave laborers in a secret underground plant and then fired against London and Antwerp. Thousands of prisoners died—a fact he well knew and kept silent about for as long as possible.When the Allies overran Germany, von Braun and his team surrendered to the Americans. The U.S. Army immediately recognized his skills and brought him and his colleagues to America to work on the development of guided missiles, in a covert operation that became known as Project Paperclip. He helped launch the first American satellite in 1958 and headed NASA’s launch-vehicle development for the Apollo Moon landing.Handsome and likable, von Braun dedicated himself to selling the American public on interplanetary travel and became a household name in the 1950s, appearing on Disney TV shows and writing for popular magazines. But he never fully escaped his past, and in later years he faced increasing questions as his wartime actions slowly came to light.Based on new sources, Von Braun is a brilliantly nuanced portrait of a man caught between morality and progress, between his dreams of the heavens and the earthbound realities of his life.

    astronaut Clayton C. Anderson and takes you on the journey of this small-town boy from Nebraska who spent 167 days living and working on the International Space Station, including more than forty hours of space walks. Having applied to NASA fifteen times over fifteen years to become an astronaut before his ultimate selection, Anderson offers a unique perspective on his life as a veteran space flier, one characterized by humility and perseverance.From the application process to launch aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, from serving as a family escort for the ill-fated Columbia crew in 2003 to his own daily struggles—family separation, competitive battles to win coveted flight assignments, the stress of a highly visible job, and the ever-present risk of having to make the ultimate sacrifice—Anderson shares the full range of his experiences. With a mix of levity and gravitas, Anderson gives an authentic view of the highs and the lows, the triumphs and the tragedies of life as a NASA astronaut.Purchase the audio edition.

    Neil Armstrong responded by switching off the automatic mode and taking direct control. He stopped monitoring the computer and began flying the spacecraft, relying on skill to land it and earning praise for a triumph of human over machine. In Digital Apollo, engineer-historian David Mindell takes this famous moment as a starting point for an exploration of the relationship between humans and computers in the Apollo program. In each of the six Apollo landings, the astronaut in command seized control from the computer and landed with his hand on the stick. Mindell recounts the story of astronauts' desire to control their spacecraft in parallel with the history of the Apollo Guidance Computer. From the early days of aviation through the birth of spaceflight, test pilots and astronauts sought to be more than "spam in a can" despite the automatic controls, digital computers, and software developed by engineers.Digital Apollo examines the design and execution of each of the six Apollo moon landings, drawing on transcripts and data telemetry from the flights, astronaut interviews, and NASA's extensive archives. Mindell's exploration of how human pilots and automated systems worked together to achieve the ultimate in flight -- a lunar landing -- traces and reframes the debate over the future of humans and automation in space. The results have implications for any venture in which human roles seem threatened by automated systems, whether it is the work at our desktops or the future of exploration.

    In this visionary book, noted planetary scientist John S. Lewis explains how we can mine these precious metals from the asteroids, comets, and planets in our own solar system for use in space construction projects. And this is just one of the possibilities. Join John S. Lewis as he contemplates milking the moons of Mars for water and hollowing out asteroids for space-bound homesteaders—all while demonstrating the economic and technical feasibility of plans that were once considered pure fiction.