Space Shuttle 2013

Description

The space shuttle was a bold idea: a space plane launched as a rocket only to drop out of orbit deadstick, unpowered, with one chance to glide safely back to Earth. Like any space program, it had its tragedies and triumphs . . . and reached its end. After thirty years of service, the shuttles have come back to Earth for good, destined for new homes in museums across the United States. As this chapter of the American space program closes, science author Piers Bizony looks back on three decades of the world's first operational space plane. Fifteen color photos cover operations before, during, and after liftoff and touchdown, celebrating NASA's longest-running space program.

Piers Bizony is the author of "The Space Shuttle: Celebrating Thirty Years of NASA's First Space Plane" and "One Giant Leap: Apollo 11 Remembered," both from Zenith Press. He has written about science, aerospace, and cosmology for a wide variety of magazines in the United Kingdom and the United States. His previous books include "2001: Filming the Future," "The Rivers of Mars," "Starman" (a biography of Yuri Gagarin), and "Space: 50," marking the fiftieth anniversary of "Sputnik."