Reichhardt, Tony (Air & Space / Smithonian Magazine, Editor)
First Edition In this unprecedented collection of personal stories, 77 space shuttle astronauts - the largest number ever in one volume - share their recollections of living and working on board the world's only reusable spaceships over the past 20 years. Through written submissions and original Interviews with the editors of Air & Space/ Smithsonian magazine, the astronauts tell in candid detail what it's really like to launch into orbit, float weightless, conduct spacewalks, view the Earth from 200 miles up, build a space station, and rustle seven-ton satellites by hand. Their stories of adventure, surprise, fear, and awe take us behind the scenes to a wondrous place that few people can visit for themselves. The photographs in the book, many of them published here for the first time, were collected from deep in the NASA archives to portray the shuttle experience from the astronaut's point of view. ASTRONAUT MIKE McCULLEY, ON THE LAUNCH: The vehicle explodes, literally explodes, off the pad. The Simulator shakes you a little bit, but the actual liftoff shakes your entire body and soul. BERNARD HARRIS, ON BEGINNING A SPACEWALK: As l was getting ready to step out, it feit for an instant like gravity was going to grab hold of me and pull me down toward Earth. l feit myself hanging on to the handrail and saying, "No, you're not going to fall..." JOHN GLENN, ON THE CHALLENCER ACCIDENT! If anybody had told me back in the days of Project Mercury that we would go all these years, dealing with all these complexities of space travel, and would have only one failure, l'd have thought that was wishful thinking.
Hardcover with dust jacket, large format
320 Seiten / pages
many excellent photos, all in color
very good condition, with a name label of the previous owner
Washington D.C. - London - New York - 2002 - Smithsonian Institution - DK Publishing
Art.Nr. 25293
