Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters : Over 50 True Accounts of Triumph and Tragedy in Space, Taking You Right Inside the Capsule Cockpit and Beyond

by Lawrence, Richard Russell

• ISBN13: 9780786714490
• ISBN10: 0786714492
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-10
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

In the words of those who trod the void and others based at mission control, here are more than fifty of the greatest true stories of suborbital, orbital, and deep space exploration. From Apollo 8's first view of a tortured landscape of craters on the "dark side" of the Moon to a series of cliff-hanger crises aboard space station Mir, The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters offers moments of extraordinary heroic achievement as well as episodes of terrible human cost. High points include the classic, nail-biting account of abandoning Apollo 13 on the way to the Moon and Jerry Linenger's panic attack during a space walk where he was "just out there dangling."

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
List of Abbreviations	ix
Introduction	xiii
Chapter 1 At Heaven's Door - Testing the Limits	1	(28)
Introduction: From the Wright brothers to the X-1	1	(4)
Breaking the sound barrier	5	(7)
Eugene F. May tests the Skyrocket	12	(9)
Scott Crossfield's engine explodes	21	(8)
Chapter 2 Rockets Away - Escape from Earth	29	(126)
From the Second World War to the space race	29	(12)
Which way to the moon?	41	(6)
Project Mercury	47	(13)
The first US manned space flight	60	(17)
Gus Grissom's mishap	77	(9)
Glenn's orbital flight	86	(26)
Malfunctions aboard Scott Carpenter's orbital flight	112	(43)
Chapter 3 Man in Space - The Glory Days	155	(178)
Project Gemini	155	(1)
Project Gemini and the bush telegraph	155	(6)
Soviet test disasters	161	(2)
Voskhod 2: the first space walk	163	(2)
Gemini III: Grissom in trouble again	165	(2)
Gemini IV: the first US space walk	167	(5)
Gemini VIII has to abort	172	(3)
Gemini IX and the angry alligator	175	(2)
Gemini XI: asleep in a vacuum	177	(3)
Gemini XII: Aldrin space walks on his first flight	180	(2)
The Apollo 1 disaster	182	(11)
The Soyuz 1 disaster	193	(3)
The Apollo program is revised	196	(3)
NASA's plans are threatened	199	(5)
Armstrong crashes in training	204	(1)
Apollo 8 flies around the moon	205	(15)
Apollo 9: an "all-up" test	220	(4)
Apollo 10: the full-scale rehearsal	224	(1)
Apollo 11: the eagle has landed	224	(21)
Apollo 12 is struck by lightning	245	(11)
Apollo 13's problem - 11-17 April 1970	256	(51)
Scares on Apollo 14	307	(5)
Apollo 15: a scientific and technical peak	312	(1)
Apollo 16's cliff-hanger	313	(2)
Apollo 17: last man on the moon	315	(5)
Skylab in deep trouble	320	(11)
Soviets' 20G return to Earth	331	(1)
Apollo-Soyuz shaking hands	331	(2)
Chapter 4 Retreat to Earth - Cancellations Galore	333	(112)
Skylab plunges to Earth	333	(2)
Salyut 7 is revived	335	(1)
Report on the Challenger accident	336	(16)
Mir: introduction	352	(2)
Dangerous, emergency EVA aboard Mir	354	(2)
Hubble's troubles	356	(3)
The depressed astronaut	359	(3)
Mir's Kurs system fails	362	(1)
The fire aboard Mir	363	(15)
The near miss	378	(6)
Linenger's EVA "just out there dangling"	384	(10)
An unmanned Progress supply vessel crashes into Mir	394	(18)
Mir loses all its power	412	(2)
Cosmonaut experiences a leak in his spacesuit	414	(5)
John Glenn's shuttle flight	419	(19)
The end of Mir	438	(1)
First hearing on the Shuttle Columbia accident	439	(6)
Chapter 5 New Horizons - The Ongoing Quest	445	(42)
Life on Mars	445	(14)
Martian space race	459	(3)
Smart 1: the Star Trek propulsion system	462	(7)
Storm of stardust threatens satellites	469	(1)
Goodbye Galileo	469	(4)
Heinlein Prize	473	(1)
Alt.Space	474	(2)
SpaceShipOne	476	(3)
Hubble: the Next Generation Space Telescope	479	(1)
China joins the space race	480	(3)
2014: the Rosetta space odyssey	483	(2)
The oldest stars ever seen	485	(2)
Appendix Space, Fact and Fiction	487	(8)
Bibliography & Sources	495