A firsthand account by a veteran mission controller who played a pivotal role during NASA's golden age recounting thrilling historic events plus new information about the famous flights. What appeared to be nearly flawless missions to the moon were, in fact, a series of hair-raising near misses. When technology failed, as it sometimes did, the controllers' only recourse was to rely on their skills and those of their teammates.

" In the 1960s and ’70s, America spent $24 billion (around $150 billion in today’s dollars) to land humans on the moon and “win” the space race. And while humans took their first steps on an extraterrestrial landscape, protesters at Cape Canaveral asked: Why waste money on space when there are so many issues here on Earth? More than 50 years later, an oligopoly of commercial space companies—SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic—has...

"This book is being published in association with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The museum will celebrate its 40th anniversary in July 2016. There will be a new Smithsonian exhibition, to be called "Milestones of Flight." This book is NOT a catalog of the exhibition; rather, it is a history of flight told through approximately twenty-five historical milestones"--

"A space historian's tour through astounding spaceflight history and the Smithsonian's collection of space and science fiction memorabilia"--

"Meet the visionary physicists, chemists, engineers, and entertainers (as well as mice, bears, tortoises, and more) who took rockets from illuminations in the sky to the most powerful vehicles ever known. You'll also find out how using a gyroscope, swinging on a swing set, and spraying water from a garden hose are the keys to understanding space travel"--Back cover.

"This narrative nonfiction work recounts the early years of air and space exploration and the daring exploits of America's first astronauts--both the men and women who were called upon to train."-- "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...

"An illustrated guide to real and imagined spaceships, and how popular culture influenced the development of each"--