"Through meticulous research," the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist "brings to light the history of aviation weapons" in this "well written" account ( Library Journal).A New York Times Notable BookBarons of the Sky captures the stories of the pioneers who built the major corporations of the American aerospace industry. Wayne Biddle covers everything from post–World War I, to production escalation in World War II, to the po...

A stunning investigation of the roots of the first moon landing forty years ago.This illuminating story of the dawn of the space age reaches back to the reactionary modernism of the Third Reich, using the life of “rocket scientist” Wernher von Braun as its narrative path through the crumbling of Weimar Germany and the rise of the Nazi regime. Von Braun, a blinkered opportunist who could apply only tunnel vision to his meteoric career, stands as an archetype of myri...

From the ravages of the Ebola virus in Zaire to outbreaks of pneumonic plague in India and drug-resistant TB in New York City, contagious diseases are fighting back against once-unconquerable modern medicine. Public concern about infectious disease is on the rise as newspapers trumpet the arrivals of new germs and the reemergence of old ones.In A Field Guide to Germs, Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Wayne Biddle brings readers face to face with nearly one hundred of ...

A comprehensive and accessible guide to understanding how radiation affects our everyday livesNuclear energy, X-rays, radon, cell phones . . . radiation is part of the way we live on a daily basis, and yet the sources and repercussions of our exposure to it remain mysterious. Now Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Wayne Biddle offers a first-of-its-kind guide to understanding this fundamental aspect of the universe. From fallout to radiation poisoning, alpha particl...

An "exciting" minute-by-minute account of the Apollo 13 flight based on mission control transcripts from Houston ( The New York Times).On the evening of April 13, 1970, the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13 were just hours from the third lunar landing in history. But as they soared through space, two hundred thousand miles from Earth, an explosion badly damaged their spacecraft. With compromised engines and failing life-support systems, the crew was in inco...

As command module pilot for the Apollo 15 mission to the moon in 1971, Al Worden flew on what is widely regarded as the greatest exploration mission that humans have ever attempted. He spent six days orbiting the moon, including three days completely alone, the most isolated human in existence. During the return from the moon to earth he also conducted the first spacewalk in deep space, becoming the first human ever to see both the entire earth and moon simply by turning his head. The Apol...

Tom Wolfe at his very best" (The New York Times Book Review), The Right Stuff is t****he basis for the 1983 Oscar Award-winning film of the same name and the 8-part Disney+ TV mini-series.From "America's nerviest journalist" (Newsweek)--a breath-taking epic, a magnificent adventure story, and an investigation into the true heroism and courage of the first Americans to conquer space. "Millions of words have poured ...

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...

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 New York Times –bestselling biography of President Lyndon Johnson from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author, "America's historian-in-chief" ( New York Magazine ).With a new foreword by the authorFeaturing a 2018 foreword by the Pulitzer Prize–winning political historian that celebrates a reappraisal of Lyndon Johnson's legacy five decades after his presi...

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin's courageous, candid memoir of his return to Earth after the historic moon landing and his personal struggle with fame and depression."We landed with all the grace of a freight elevator," Buzz Aldrin relates in the opening passages of Return to Earth, remembering Command Module Columbia's abrupt descent into the gravity of the blue planet. With that splash, Aldrin takes readers on a journey through the human side of ...

In May 2000 the British nuclear hunter-killer submarine HMS Tireless limped into Gibraltar using emergency propulsion and with her nuclear reactor shut down. Days earlier, while traversing the Straits of Sicily the crew had discovered a crack in one of the nuclear reactor pipes, requiring the immediate shutting down of the reactor to prevent a potential reactor accident, an operation never before conducted on a British submarine at sea. Th e previous six days had been a difficult time for ...