“A colorful page-turner.” —Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review“As important a book on space as has ever been written.” —Homer Hickam, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Rocket BoysThe dramatic inside story of the historic flights that launched SpaceX—and Elon Musk—from a shaky start-up into the world’s leading-edge rocket company.SpaceX has enjoyed a miraculou...

National Indie Excellence Awards Winner in Technology**Featured in The Economist’s Best Books of 2024USA Today BestsellerHow did a shaky startup defy expectations and become the world’s leading spaceflight company? Get the untold story of the team of game-changers, led by a well-known billionaire, who are sending NASA astronauts to space—and just might carry the human race to Mars.**One company dominates the modern...

The dramatic inside story of the first four historic flights that launched SpaceX—and Elon Musk—from a shaky startup into the world's leading edge rocket company.In 2006, SpaceX—a brand-new venture with fewer than 200 employees—rolled its first, single-engine rocket onto a launch pad at Kwajalein Atoll. After a groundbreaking launch from the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Falcon 1 rocket designed by Elon Musk’s engineers rose in the air for approximately thirty s...

How did a shaky startup defy expectations and become the world's leading spaceflight company? Get the untold story of the team of game-changers, led by a well-known billionaire, who are sending NASA astronauts to space—and just might carry the human race to Mars.One company dominates the modern space industry: SpaceX, founded by controversial entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002, now sending more payloads into orbit than the rest of the world combined. But Musk didn't do...

**GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK • A young, ambitious female astronaut’s life is upended by a love affair that threatens the rescue of a lost crew in this brilliantly imagined novel “with echoes of Station Eleven, The Martian, and, yes, Jane Eyre” (Observer).NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VULTURE AND SHE READS • “The female astronaut novel we never knew we needed.”—Entertainment Weekly**June is a bri...

Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn't think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly forty million Americans were tuning in weekly.In Seinfeldia, acclaimed TV histori...

This New York Times bestselling memoir of a veteran NASA flight director tells riveting stories from the early days of the Mercury program through Apollo 11 (the moon landing) and Apollo 13, for both of which Kranz was flight director.Gene Kranz was present at the creation of America’s manned space program and was a key player in it for three decades. As a flight director in NASA’s Mission Control, Kranz witnessed firsthand the making of history. He partic...

Chief engineer Thomas J. Kelly gives a firsthand account of designing, building, testing, and flying the Apollo lunar module. It was, he writes, “an aerospace engineer’s dream job of the century.” Kelly’s account begins with the imaginative process of sketching solutions to a host of technical challenges with an emphasis on safety, reliability, and maintainability. He catalogs numerous test failures, including propulsion-system leaks, ascent-engine instability, stress corrosion of the alum...

**A "**pacy, smartly reported" (Financial Times) account of the historic quest to rekindle the human exploration and colonization of space led by two rival billionairesThe Space Barons is the story of a group of billionaire entrepreneurs who are pouring their fortunes into the epic resurrection of the American space program. Nearly a half-century after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, these Space Barons – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, ...

The former launch commentator "offers a personal—and sometimes painful—look back at one of the darkest chapters in US human spaceflight" (Space.com).On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Seventy-three seconds after launch, the fiery breach of a solid motor joint caused a rupture of the propellant tanks, and a stunned nation watched as flames engulfed the craft, killing all seven crew members on...

The NASA way: lessons on leadership, teamwork, and corporate culture. How does NASA take on seemingly insurmountable challenges, recover from tragedy and continue to attract the best and brightest talent?Space exploration is as much a story of leadership and teamwork as it is a story of exploration and discovery. Leadership Moments from NASA delves into the culture of the famed organization and examines the leadership styles and insights of NASA senior exe...

The long-awaited memoir of a trailblazer and role model who is telling her story for the first time.Eileen Collins was an aviation pioneer her entire career, from her crowning achievements as the first woman to command an American space mission as well as the first to pilot the space shuttle to her early years as one of the Air Force’s first female pilots. She was in the first class of women to earn pilot’s wings at Vance Air Force Base and was their first female in...