Space History

“Let’s face it; space is a risky business. I always considered every launch a barely controlled explosion.” — Aaron Cohen, NASA. It was 28 degrees on that fateful day in January of 1986 at Kennedy Space Center, Fla. I was very fortunate to have been selected to be part of a small team of engineers to work at pad 39B for the Space Shuttle Challenger 51 L launch. We were allowed the closest access to the launch pad. This is my personal account of the before and after of what was the first in air disaster of America’s Space Program. The photo you see on the front cover of the book is...

There are so many amazing, daring, and exciting missions to outer space that have succeeded. But for every success, there are mistakes, surprises, and flat-out failures that happen along the way. In this collection, best-selling author and award-winning journalist Jeffrey Kluger recounts 12 such disasters, telling the stories of the astronauts and the cosmonauts, the trials and the errors, the missions and the misses.

How to Love the Universe is a new kind of science writing by an author truly enamored of the world around him. In 10 short chapters of lyrical prose - each one an ode to a breathtaking realm of discovery - Stefan Klein uses everyday objects and events as a springboard to meditate on the beauty of the underlying science.

Eclipses have stunned, frightened, emboldened, and mesmerized people for thousands of years. They were recorded on ancient turtle shells discovered in the Wastes of Yin in China, on clay tablets from Mesopotamia and on the Mayan "Dresden Codex". They are mentioned in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and at least eight times in the Bible. Columbus used them to trick people, while Renaissance painter Taddeo Gaddi was blinded by one. Sorcery was banished within the Catholic Church after astrologers used an eclipse to predict a pope's death.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research—a riveting history that flows like a thriller.

Right now, you are orbiting a black hole. The Earth goes around the Sun, and the Sun goes around the centre of the Milky Way: a supermassive black hole—the strangest and most misunderstood phenomenon in the galaxy. In A Brief History of Black Holes, University of Oxford astrophysicist Dr Becky Smethurst charts the scientific breakthroughs that have uncovered the weird and wonderful world of black holes, from Hawking radiation to the iconic first photographs of a black hole in 2019.

A small Peacekeeper Armada goes to Mars where their terraforming efforts have begun to make the red planet habitable. Not long after they arrive, they are informed that a large Russian fleet, along with the remnants of the Colombian drug cartel’s pirate ships, is headed for a showdown with the American forces working to prepare a colony site for the first colonists.Knowing they will be outnumbered almost three to one, and that it will take a miracle for their forces to defeat those arrayed against them, the Peacekeepers in the Mars planetary system call on their secret weapon to help them...

Apollo is the behind-the-scenes story of an epic achievement. Based on exhaustive research that included many exclusive interviews, Apollo tells how America went from a standing start to a landing on the moon at a speed that now seems impossible. It describes the unprecedented engineering challenges that had to be overcome to create the mammoth Saturn V and the facilities to launch it. It takes you into the tragedy of the fire on Apollo 1, the first descent to the lunar surface, and the rescue of Apollo 13.

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems too good to be true.

The authoritative story of the headline-making discovery of gravitational waves - by an eminent theoretical astrophysicist and award-winning writer.

From the #1 bestselling author of the Noah Hunter series, and Grim Measures, comes the sequel to Edge of Time. Where a former FBI agent and time traveler Brad Sheppard is once again thrust into the quantum realm so there will be a future worth returning to. Former FBI agent and time traveler Brad Sheppard witnesses an impossible murder in the Late Middle Ages, but upon returning to the present, his family has vanished. History has been rewritten. With nothing left to lose, Brad tears through the quantum realm and the centuries, desperate to restore his wife and daughter. But he must do so ...

James A. Michener tackles the most ambitious subject of his career: space, the last great frontier. This astounding novel brings to life the dreams and daring of countless men and women - people like Stanley Mott, the engineer whose irrepressible drive for knowledge places him at the center of the American exploration effort, and Norman Grant, the war hero and US senator who takes his personal battle not only to a nation but to the heavens.

The Balance of Wonder and Terror Learn the truth of the secret war in space with both the Soviets and dark technomancers bent on world domination in Gods in Darkness. Thrill to incredible truths buried in the sands of ages or in our own Area 51 in The Dig. Ride along with some crazed truckers dealing with Lovecraftian horrors in At the Highways of Madness. Know the stark terror of reading a forbidden book of the damned when the stars are not right. Love knows no bounds through time and space--especially for one of Lovecraft's Elder Things in The Queen in Shadow. And finally, go beyond the ...

At the dawn of the 20th century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way.

Figuring explores the complexities of love and the human search for truth and meaning through the interconnected lives of several historical figures across four centuries - beginning with the astronomer Johannes Kepler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion, and ending with the marine biologist and author Rachel Carson, who catalyzed the environmental movement.

"Discover the gripping tale of Project Mercury, America's inaugural manned spaceflight initiative that launched humanity into the cosmos. Fueled by Cold War competition and national pride, Project Mercury symbolizes a remarkable collaboration among NASA, government agencies, and American industry. This program pushed the boundaries of human achievement, from the bustling launchpads of Cape Canaveral to the vastness of space. Beginning with the urgent race to put a man into orbit and safely return him to Earth, Project Mercury unfolded with unprecedented speed. NASA achieved what typically ...

When three heroic men traveled aboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft bound for the moon, the entire world sat glued to their television sets in suspense. But few knew just how much it took to get that far. To put a man on the moon, thousands of people diligently worked behind the scenes. Countless preparations had to be made and no detail, however small, could be overlooked - the lives of the crewmen were at stake.

From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, the never-before-told story behind America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies. Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.

Malcolm Gladwell, author of New York Times best sellers including Talking to Strangers and host of the podcast Revisionist History, uses original interviews, archival footage, and his trademark insight to weave together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in Central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard. As listeners hear these stories unfurl, Gladwell examines one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.

The story of the men and women who drove the Voyager spacecraft mission, told by a scientist who was there from the beginning. The Voyager spacecraft are our farthest-flung emissaries--11.3 billion miles away from the crew who built and still operate them decades after their launch.