Overview

Full Product Details

9780375754852

Table of Contents

Reviews

The most successful general survey of space history yet to appear. --The New York Times The most comprehensive history of humanity's efforts to explore space ever to be crammed into a single volume. --The Washington Post Leaving Earth for the first time was the single greatest achievement of the twentieth century. It was also an adventure of Homeric proportions. This is the story, vividly told, of how it happened. Here are American and Soviet politicians, scientists, engineers, generals, and astronauts, dueling for prestige and supremacy from within Earth's orbit to the Sea of Tranquility to the beautiful but deadly plateaus of Venus. This New Ocean is the first full account of how the Soviet space program really worked, revealing why it was doomed to fall short of the Moon; why NASA has always been driven by public relations; how science fiction provided the blueprint for reality; what the military really has in store for space; and how the migration of humans to Mars and beyond has already begun. A Notable Book of the Year --St. Louis Post-Dispatch A Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year --Library Journal Burrows offers a complete, authoritative history of the technology that allowed us to explore space and the people who created and managed that technology. . . . For those who struggle to understand the nature of humanity, it offers new insights into old paradoxes. For those who ask where we are going, it offers hope. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) [An] all-encompassing and splendidly written account. --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

An encyclopedic history of space exploration by an insider and veteran reporter who has lost nothing in his enthusiasm and respect for what humankind has wrought. But he tells it like it is, which means constant rivalry that pitted the air force against the CIA for control of spy satellites and saw the Department Of Defense turn apoplectic with the anointing of a new civilian space agency, NASA, born in 1958. Stir into this brew the science-driven egos at Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech and the rocket boys at Huntsville who were led by the indomitable Wernher von Braun. Now add the critical ingredient: the Cold War and nuclear threat and the loss of face that came with Sputnik and Gagarin. To counter that threat and restore a nation's pride, Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon before the end of the '60s and explore this new ocean was well-nigh inevitable. It also meant that science for science's sake would take a backseat to realpolitik and the media. Burrows chronicles the events in authoritative if often over-rich detail, but he is enough of a fine reporter to lace the narrative with juicy quotes. When Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay was told of a plan to built a rocket plane to fly into orbit, he reportedly had only one question: Where's the bomb bay? Burrows is also not one to overlook the peccadilloes of the original Right Stuff Seven (excepting Glenn). Because of the separate tracks of the manned space program versus the planetary fly-bys and the need to cover Russian as well as American activities in these areas, there is some back-tracking and redundancy in the chronologies, and there are oft-repeated sermons on the disasters of life and science under Communism. But overall, this is likely to be the bible for those tracking a unique period in Earth history - the first space age as Burrows terms it. (Kirkus Reviews)

The most successful general survey of space history yet to appear. <br>--The New York Times <br> The most comprehensive history of humanity's efforts to explore space ever to be crammed into a single volume. <br>--The Washington Post <br>Leaving Earth for the first time was the single greatest achievement of the twentieth century. It was also an adventure of Homeric proportions. This is the story, vividly told, of how it happened. Here are American and Soviet politicians, scientists, engineers, generals, and astronauts, dueling for prestige and supremacy from within Earth's orbit to the Sea of Tranquility to the beautiful but deadly plateaus of Venus. This New Ocean is the first full account of how the Soviet space program really worked, revealing why it was doomed to fall short of the Moon; why NASA has always been driven by public relations; how science fiction provided the blueprint for reality; what the military really has in store for space; and how the migration of humans to Mars and beyond has already begun. <br>A Notable Book of the Year --St. Louis Post-Dispatch<br>A Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year --Library Journal <br> Burrows offers a complete, authoritative history of the technology that allowed us to explore space and the people who created and managed that technology. . . . For those who struggle to understand the nature of humanity, it offers new insights into old paradoxes. For those who ask where we are going, it offers hope. <br>--Publishers Weekly (starred review) <br> [An] all-encompassing and splendidly written account. <br>--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Author Information

William E. Burrows has reported on aviation and space for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He has had articles in The New York Times Magazine, Foreign Affairs, The Sciences, and other publications and is a contributing editor for Air & Space/Smithsonian. He is also the author of seven previous books, including Deep Black, the award-winning classic work on spying from space. Mr. Burrows is a professor of journalism at New York University and the founder and director of its graduate Science and Environmental Reporting Program.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available