Astronaut Biography

Without John C. Houbolt, a mid-level engineer at NASA, Apollo 11 would never have made it to the moon. Top NASA engineers on the project, including Werner Von Braun, strongly advocated for a single, huge spacecraft to travel to the moon, land, and return to Earth. It's the scenario used in 1950s cartoons and horror movies about traveling to outer space. Houbolt had another idea: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous. LOR would link two spacecraft in orbit while the crafts were travelling at 3,600 miles an hour around the moon. His plan was ridiculed and considered unthinkable.

This audiobook is fascinatingly read by the author, Chris Hadfield. Back on the earth after three spaceflights, Chris Hadfield's captivating memoir An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth reveals extraordinary stories from his life as an astronaut, and shows how to make the impossible a reality...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself strapped to a giant rocket that's about to go from zero to 17,500 miles per hour? Or to look back on Earth from outer space and see the surprisingly precise line between day and night? Or to stand in front of the Hubble Space Telescope, wondering if the emergency repair you're about to make will inadvertently ruin humankind's chance to unlock the universe's secrets? Mike Massimino has been there, and in Spaceman he puts you inside the suit.

"Houston, We have a problem"! During the Apollo 11 moon landing, as many as 400,000 people had jobs that were essential to the successful mission. Learn about aeronautics and the different jobs in the field that helped man take the first steps on the moon and expand our understanding of the solar system. Who was one of the first women to work at NASA and what role did she have?

A New York Times bestseller! The historic race that reawakened the promise of manned spaceflight A Finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Alone in a Spartan black cockpit, test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed toward space. He had eighty seconds to exceed the speed of sound...

As Commander of the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield captivated the world with stunning photos and commentary from space. Now, reading from his first book, Chris takes listeners deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Chris...

This program is read by the author. In the spirit of The Right Stuff, updated for the 21st century, Test Gods is an epic story about extreme bravery and sacrifice, about the thin line between lunacy and genius. Most of all, it is a story about the pursuit of meaning in our lives—and the...

Neil Armstrong's journey to the moon is the focus of the fifteenth entry in the New York Times bestselling series of biographies about heroes. This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great--the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically...

From one of the world’s leading planetary scientists, a luminous memoir of exploration on Earth, in space, and within oneself—equal parts ode to the beauty of science, meditation on loss, and roadmap for personal resilience ""Fierce, absorbing, and ultimately inspiring."" —ELIZABETH...

Written for ages 10 and up -- enjoyed by adults! Alan Shepard gripped the abort handle and braced his feet against the capsule floor. Five, Four, Three...Don't screw up, he muttered. Two, One, Zero, Liftoff. Alan felt himself rising into the sky. He could scarcely believe it. The boy who grew up...

The never-before-told story of NASA’s 1978 astronaut class, which included the first American women, the first African Americans, the first Asian American, and the first gay person to fly to space. With the exclusive participation of the astronauts who were there, this is the thrilling...

The Space Age began just as the struggle for civil rights forced Americans to confront the long and bitter legacy of slavery, discrimination, and violence against African Americans. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson utilized the space program as an agent for social change, using federal equal employment opportunity laws to open workplaces at NASA and NASA contractors to African Americans while creating thousands of research and technology jobs in the Deep South to ameliorate poverty.

An incredible true-life adventure set on the most dangerous frontier of all–outer space For a special breed of individual, the call of space is worth the risk it entails: men such as U.S. astronauts Donald Pettit and Kenneth Bowersox, and Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin, who in...

An incredible, true-life adventure set on the most dangerous frontier of all—outer spaceIn the nearly forty years since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, space travel has come to be seen as a routine enterprise—at least until the shuttle Columbia disintegrated like the Challenger before it...

In the 1960s, locked in a heated race to launch the first human into space, the United States selected seven superstar test pilots and former military air fighters to NASA's astronaut class -- the Mercury 7. The men endured grueling training and constant media attention for the honor of becoming America's first space heroes. But a group of 13 women -- accomplished air racers, test pilots, and flight instructors -- were enduring those same astronaut tests in secret, hoping to defy social norms and earn a spot among the stars.

Former NASA astronaut Cady Coleman shares the wisdom that helped her overcome the barriers of others’ expectations—and how to work on a team both in close quarters and remotely. In 2010, Cady Coleman boarded a rocket and blasted off into space for her third NASA mission, a six-month...

Have you ever dreamed of going to outer space? When Sally Ride was a little girl, she watched on TV as astronaut John Glenn launched into space. Twenty years later, she became the first American woman to go to space. Ride had loved science since she was young. Some of her teachers thought she was wasting her time studying science, but she went on to earn her PhD in astrophysics anyway. When NASA's astronaut training program opened to women, Ride quickly applied. Some people thought women couldn't handle space flight. But Ride worked hard and proved them all wrong.

In this book filled with exclusive interviews with Canadian astronauts and key players in the Canadian space program, Elizabeth Howell showcases how a little space program is making it big in the universe.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon and, to an audience of over 450 million people, proclaimed his step a giant leap for mankind. This Eagle Scout built his own model planes as a little boy and then grew up to be a test pilot for experimental aircraft before becoming an...

Lisa Nowak, högt ansedd astronaut, sätter sig i sin bil, spänner upp ögonen och kör sträckan Houston till Orlando. Fjorton timmar senare, knappt utan mat eller toalettstopp, är hon framme, beredd att göra upp med kvinnan som i hennes ögon står i vägen för hennes och kollegan Bill Oefeleins eviga kärlek. En snabb titt ner i hennes bagage ger sken om illabådande intentioner: förutom kontanter kan man hitta en hammare, en fällkniv, latexhandskar och Colleen Shipmans, den romantiska rivalen, adress nedklottrat.