Space History

Come Fly with Us is the story of an elite group of space travelers who flew as members of many space shuttle crews from pre-Challenger days to Columbia in 2003. Not part of the regular NASA astronaut corps, these professionals known as “payload specialists” came from a wide variety of backgrounds and were chosen for an equally wide variety of scientific, political, and national security reasons.

In Apollo's Legacy, space historian Roger D. Launius explores the many-faceted stories told about the meaning of the Apollo program and how it forever altered American society. The Apollo missions marked the first time human beings left Earth's orbit and visited another world, and thus they loom large in our collective memory. Many have detailed the exciting events of the Apollo program, but Launius offers unique insight into its legacy as seen through multiple perspectives.

Sometimes our understanding of our universe is given a huge boost by one insightful thinker. Such a boost came in the first half of the 20th century, when an obscure Belgian priest put his mind to deciphering the nature of the cosmos. The Day Without Yesterday covers the modern history of an evolving universe, and how Georges Lemaître convinced a generation of thinkers to embrace the notion of cosmic expansion and the theory that this expansion could be traced backward to the cosmic origins, a starting point for space and time that Lemaître called "the day without yesterday".

It has been argued that science fiction (SF) gives a kind of weather forecast - not the telling of a fortune but rather the rough feeling of what the future might be like. The intention in this audiobook is to consider some of these bygone forecasts made by SF and to use this as a prism through which to view current developments in science and technology.

The time of the Great Exodus is over. Centuries have passed. Earth is overpopulated, and the fate of the colonists who traveled to the stars is unknown. An attempt to start the second wave of expansion has led to a shocking discovery: All accessible planets located within one hyperjump from the Solar System have been settled during the Great Exodus. The colonists have created unique and distinctive civilizations - but none of that matters when the survival of billions of Terrans is at stake.

Ever wish you could have your very own lightsaber like Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi? Or that you could fly through space at the speed of light like Han Solo and Poe Dameron? Well, those ideas aren't as outlandish as you think. In The Physics of Star Wars, you'll explore the mystical power of the Force using quantum mechanics, find out how much energy it would take for the Death Star or Starkiller Base to destroy a planet, and discover how we can potentially create our very own lightsabers.

In 1954, the US Air Force launched an ambitious program known as WS-117L to develop the world's first reconnaissance satellite. The goal was to take photographic images from space and relay them back to Earth via radio. Because of technical issues and bureaucratic resistance, however, WS-117L was seriously behind schedule by the time Sputnik orbited Earth in 1957 and was eventually cancelled. Eyeing the Red Storm examines the birth of space-based reconnaissance from the perspective of WS-117L.

The Cavill Family is continuing their late time-traveling father’s mission to save humanity from a nuclear holocaust. In the course of doing this, they have made enemies. One of these enemies kidnapped Beatrice Cavill and brutally interrogated her. She was rescued but the aftermath of her ordeal has changed the course of her life. But the changing world continues to lurch towards violent conflict despite the Cavills attempts to refocus humanity’s attention towards space travel. Even as a colony is being established on Mars at the beginning of the 1970’s, dramatic events over the ...

Noah Adams's adventure in search of Wilbur and Orville Wright is a journey that takes him across the country as he follows in the footsteps of the famous brothers in an attempt to know them more deeply, not just as inventors and pilots but as individuals as well.

Florida's Space Coast tells the compelling story of America's half century in space exploration from the successful launch of the first two-stage rocket in 1950 through the space shuttle missions of 2000. Told from the unique viewpoint of the people who built the Spaceport, this book shows how the space program transformed the east central Florida coast from a traditional citrus production and tourist area to one of the most influential high-tech centers in the nation.

Without apparent reasons the Astral galaxy has been invaded by enormous and powerful unknown, cruel and devastating breed’s fleets, unexpectedly emerging from deep space. A concocted galactic coalition intends to resist, but the proud fleets from those who were up to that point, ancient and respected empires, are mercilessly swept away, battle after battle, while their systems and planets are conquered Inexorably From the Espacia Planet, in the Solarian System located nearby the galactic edge, a young but very advanced breed will secretly send a small expedition to the distant Lumina ...

On April 24, 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on the Space Shuttle Program’s 35th mission, but this was no ordinary mission. In its payload bay, Discovery was carrying the Hubble Space Telescope, with the objective of putting the telescope into orbit. By the time the Hubble telescope reached orbit, it was already the world’s most famous telescope, but it was also the most scorned. The telescope cost nearly $2 billion more to complete than anticipated, and to make matters worse, the first images it sent back were skewed.

In 2008, Elon Musk's SpaceX became the first private company to build a low-cost rocket that could reach orbit. Suddenly Silicon Valley, not NASA, was the epicentre of the new Space Age. Start-ups and investors began to realise that the heavens - ungoverned and unregulated - were open for business. When the Heavens Went on Sale tells the remarkable, unfolding story of this frenzied race to control access to outer space. Ashlee Vance follows four pioneering companies - Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs and Rocket Lab - as they attempt to launch thousands of low-cost rockets and satellites into orbit.

The Sky Is for Everyone is an internationally diverse collection of autobiographical narratives by women who broke down barriers and changed the face of modern astronomy. This audiobook vividly describes how, before 1900, a woman who wanted to study the stars had to have a father, brother, or husband to provide entry, and how the considerable intellectual skills of women astronomers were still not enough to enable them to pry open doors of opportunity for much of the twentieth century. After decades of difficult struggles, women are closer to equality in astronomy than ever before.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Vulcan 607 by Rowland White, read by Roy McMillan. It was to be one of the most ambitious operations since 617 Squadron bounced their revolutionary bombs into the dams of the Ruhr Valley in 1943.... When Argentine forces invaded the Falklands in the early hours of 2 April 1982, Britain's military chiefs were faced with a real-life Mission Impossible.

The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century has often been called a decisive turning point in human history. It represents, for good or ill, the birth of modern science and modern ways of viewing the world. In What Galileo Saw, Lawrence Lipking offers a new perspective on how to understand what happened then, arguing that artistic imagination and creativity as much as rational thought played a critical role in creating new visions of science and in shaping stories about eye-opening discoveries.

At a time when Google Maps can take you on a virtual tour of Yosemite's remotest trails and cell phones double as navigational systems, it's hard to imagine there's any uncharted ground left on the planet. In Unruly Places, Alastair Bonnett goes to some of the most unexpected, offbeat places in the world to reinspire our geographical imagination. Bonnett's remarkable tour includes moving villages, secret cities, no man's lands, and floating islands.

Trained as a musician, amateur scientist William Herschel found international fame after discovering the planet Uranus in 1781. Though he is still best known for this finding, his partnership with his sister Caroline yielded groundbreaking work, including techniques that remain in use today. The duo pioneered comprehensive surveys of the night sky, carefully categorizing every visible object in the void. Caroline wrote an influential catalogue of nebulae, and William discovered infrared radiation.

History is written by the victors; but when you've been fighting your fellow patriots, your own brothers and sisters, does anyone really win? A harrowing gut-punch of a novel, Afterwar tells the story of a dark future where America has been devastated by a second civil war. As the fighting draws to a close, the camps are liberated, the fascist regime crumbles and the work of rebuilding begins. But can a population that's spent years divided and hell-bent on victory at any cost ever be truly reunited?

Galileo's oldest child was 13 when he placed her in a convent near him in Florence, where she took the most appropriate name of Suor Maria Celeste. Her support was her father's greatest source of strength. Her presence, through letters which Sobel has translated from Italian and masterfully woven into the narrative, graces her father's life now as it did then. Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose 17th-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion.