Showing titles in Aeronautics & Astronautics

Ignition! is the inside story of the Cold War era search for a rocket propellant which could be trusted to take man into space. A favorite of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, listeners will want to tune into this "really good book on rocket[s]," available for the first time in audio. Ignition!...

Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts offers an insider's guide to astronauting—a behind-the-scenes look at the training, basic rules, lessons, and procedures of space travel, including how to deal with a dead body in space, what it’s like to film an IMAX movie in orbit, what exactly to do when...

The Top 10 Sunday Times Bestseller NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE Oscar Nominated For Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space...

In this remarkable audiobook, Professor Richard Wiseman presents a pioneering study of the mind-set that took humanity to the moon and shows how you can harness and use it to achieve the extraordinary in your everyday life. Combining personal interviews, mission archives and cutting-edge psychology, Wiseman embarks on the ultimate voyage through inner space. Along the way he identifies eight key principles that make up the Apollo mind-set, including how pessimism is crucial to success and how fear and tragedy can be transformed into hope and optimism. 

With his signature wit and thought-provoking insights, Neil deGrasse Tyson - one of our foremost thinkers on all things space - illuminates the past, present, and future of space exploration and brilliantly reminds us why NASA matters now as much as ever. As Tyson reveals, exploring the space frontier can profoundly enrich many aspects of our daily lives, from education systems and the economy to national security and morale.

The #1 New York Times bestseller from David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize—the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly—Wilbur and Orville Wright. On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two...

In the Shadow of the Moon tells the story of the most exciting and challenging years in spaceflight, with two superpowers engaged in a titanic struggle to land one of their own people on the moon. Drawing on interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, their families, technicians, and scientists, as well as rarely seen Soviet and American government documents, the authors craft a remarkable story of the golden age of spaceflight as both an intimate human experience and a rollicking global adventure.

A "pacy, smartly reported" (Financial Times) account of the historic quest to rekindle the human exploration and colonization of space led by two rival billionaires The Space Barons is the story of a group of billionaire entrepreneurs who are pouring their fortunes into the epic resurrection of...

 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.  

Infinity Beckoned illuminates a critical period of space history when humans dared an expansive leap into the inner solar system. Jay Gallentine conveys the trials and triumphs of the people on the ground who conceived and engineered the missions that put robotic spacecraft on the heavenly bodies nearest our own.

NASA’s history is a familiar story, one that typically peaks with Neil Armstrong taking his small step on the Moon in 1969. But America’s space agency wasn’t created in a vacuum. It was assembled from pre-existing parts, drawing together some of the best minds the non-Soviet world had to offer. Breaking the Chains of Gravity tells the story of America’s nascent space program, its scientific advances, its personalities and the rivalries it caused between the various arms of the US military.

A noted space expert explains the current revolution in spaceflight, where it leads, and why we need it. Astronautical engineer Robert Zubrin spells out the potential of these new developments in an engrossing narrative that is visionary yet grounded by a deep understanding of the practical challenges. Fueled by the combined expertise of the old aerospace industry and the talents of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, spaceflight is becoming cheaper.

More than 30 years ago, Frank White coined the term "overview effect", to describe the cognitive shift in awareness that results from the experience of viewing Earth from orbit or the moon. He found, that with great consistency, this experience profoundly affects space travelers' worldviews - their perceptions of themselves and our planet and our understanding of the future. White found that astronauts know from direct experience what the rest of us know only intellectually: We live on a planet that is like a natural spaceship moving through the universe.

“Earl Swift lays out this great unsung saga with verve and magisterial sweep." —Hampton Sides In this "brilliantly observed" (Newsweek) rediscovery of the final Apollo moon landings, the acclaimed author of Chesapeake Requiem reveals that these extraordinary yet overshadowed...

In The International Space Station: 10 Amazing Facts, author Daran Volcroft takes you on a journey beyond our atmosphere to discover the secrets, science, and stories behind this incredible achievement. From its humble beginnings as a single Russian module launched in 1998 to its current status as the largest human-made object in space, the ISS is a triumph of vision, technology, and cooperation.

On January 27, 1967, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee climbed into a new spacecraft perched atop a large Saturn rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a routine dress rehearsal of their upcoming launch into orbit, then less than a month away. All three astronauts were experienced pilots, but little did they know, nor did anyone else, that once they entered the spacecraft that cold winter day they would never leave it alive. Apollo 1 is a candid portrayal of the astronauts, the disaster that killed them, and its aftermath.

Homesteading Space is more than a story of technological and scientific success; it is also an absorbing, sometimes humorous, often inspiring account of the determined, hardworking individuals who shepherded the program through a near-disastrous launch, a heroic rescue, an exhausting study of Comet Kohoutek, and the lab's descent into the Indian Ocean. Featuring the unpublished in-flight diary of astronaut Alan Bean, it is replete with the personal recollections and experiences of the Skylab crew and those who worked with them in training, during the mission, and the return.

In August 1968 NASA made a bold decision: In just 16 weeks, the United States would launch humankind's first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another. Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken.

With the Soviet Union's launch of the first Sputnik satellite in 1957, the Cold War soared to new heights as Americans feared losing the race into space. The X-15 Rocket Plane tells the enthralling yet little-known story of the hypersonic X-15, the winged rocket ship that met this challenge and opened the way into human-controlled spaceflight. Drawing on interviews with those who were there, Michelle Evans captures the drama and excitement of, yes, rocket science.