Author: Jared Leidich
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780997691900
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
In 2014, Alan Eustace floated 26 miles above the earth, dangling from a high-altitude balloon and protected by only a spacesuit. For years, travelers to and from outer space have passed swiftly through the atmosphere, but such voyages have left the stratosphere unexplored. Alan, a skydiver, engineer and pilot, was convinced that future explorers should be able to visit the stratosphere outside of a vehicle, protected only by special suits, much like ocean explorers do. Extreme cold temperatures, space vacuum and out-of-control spinning during freefall all threaten a stratospheric explorer and skydiver. When Alan began this process, four aeronauts had ascended into the stratosphere with the intention of skydiving down. Two of them died in their endeavors. Alan used a suit system designed from scratch, the first since the 1970?s, and a totally unique stabilization system to bring him safely down. At the top of the stratosphere Alan found a unique layer of Earth's atmosphere that should become a destination for explorers of the future. Jared Leidich, a member of the team that designed and built the space suit recounts how a small group of engineers spent three years designing, building, testing, failing and starting over, until they built the system which carried Eustace safely to the edge of the black sky and back. This account describes how spacesuits, parachutes and high-altitude balloons work, as well as how engineers collaborate, invent, solve problems and manage the responsibilities inherent in building equipment to carry a person into the unknown. The Wild Black Yonder is an invitation to imagine the future of travel away from the planet'the missions, the craft, and the reasons for going.
Author: Jared Leidich
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780997691924
Category : Balloon ascensions
Languages : en
Pages : 484
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Book Description
"In 2014, Alan Eustace floated 26 miles above the earth, dangling from a high- altitude balloon and protected by only a spacesuit. For years, travelers to and from outer space have passed swiftly through the atmosphere, but such voyages have left the stratosphere unexplored. Alan, a skydiver, engineer and pilot, was convinced that future explorers should be able to visit the stratosphere outside of a vehicle, protected only by special suits, much like ocean explorers do. Extreme cold temperatures, space vacuum and out-of-control spinning during freefall all threaten a stratospheric explorer and skydiver. When Alan began this process, four aeronauts had ascended into the stratosphere with the intention of skydiving down. Two of them died in their endeavors. Alan used a suit system designed from scratch, the first since the 1970's, and a totally unique stabilization system to bring him safely down. At the top of the stratosphere Alan found a unique layer of Earth's atmosphere that should become a destination for explorers of the future. Jared Leidich, a member of the team that designed and built the space suit, recounts how a small group of engineers spent three years designing, building, testing, failing and starting over, until they built the system which carried Eustace safely to the edge of the black sky and back. This account describes how spacesuits, parachutes and high-altitude balloons work, as well as how engineers collaborate, invent, solve problems and manage the responsibilities inherent in building equipment to carry a person into the unknown. The Wild Black Yonder is an invitation to imagine the future of travel away from the planet the missions, the craft, and the reasons for going."--Book jacket.
Author: Juan Villoro
Publisher: Restless Books
ISBN: 1632061481
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
“We walked toward the part of the library where the air smelled as if it had been interred for years….. Finally, we got to the hallway where the wooden floor was the creakiest, and we sensed a strange whiff of excitement and fear. It smelled like a creature from a bygone time. It smelled like a dragon.” Thirteen-year-old Juan’s favorite things in the world are koalas, eating roast chicken, and the summer-time. This summer, though, is off to a terrible start. First, Juan’s parents separate and his dad goes to Paris. Then, as if that wasn’t horrible enough, Juan is sent away to his strange Uncle Tito’s house for the entire break! Uncle Tito is really odd: he has zigzag eyebrows; drinks ten cups of smoky tea a day; and lives inside a huge, mysterious library. One day, while Juan is exploring the library, he notices something inexplicable and rushes to tell Uncle Tito. “The books moved!” His uncle drinks all his tea in one gulp and, sputtering, lets his nephew in on a secret: Juan is a Princeps Reader––which means books respond magically to him––and he’s the only person capable of finding the elusive, never-before-read Wild Book. Juan teams up with his new friend Catalina and his little sister, and together they delve through books that scuttle from one shelf to the next, topple over unexpectedly, or even disappear altogether to find The Wild Book and discover its secret. But will they find it before the wicked, story-stealing Pirate Book does?
Author: Travis Nichols
Publisher: Coffee House Press
ISBN: 1566892708
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Titled after the US Air Force song, this engaging debut explores the legacy of the Greatest Generation from the perspective of Generation Y, the fallout of war through the eyes of a pacifist, and the enduring human desire for love, adventure, truth, and understanding. Pensive in the wake of 9/11, a young man—our “correspondent between the past and the present”—launches a mission to reunite his beloved grandfather, an American bombardier, with Luddie, the woman who saved him during WWII. Armed only with the address on the back of an old photograph and his grandfather’s memories, the young man begins writing letters to Luddie. Undaunted by her lack of response, the narrator travels to Poland with his girlfriend and grandfather. As they come closer to finding the site where the bombardier was shot down, the letters to Luddie become more personal and the saga of a family with a long and storied history emerges. Beautifully orchestrated and eloquently original, each sentence slowly builds upon the next in a charming style both poetic and engrossing. A tale of soldiers and saviors, of burning and bombing, of fathers and sons and brothers and lovers, this is also the story of what we find when we dare to revisit the past. Born in Iowa in 1979, Travis Nichols now lives in Chicago. An editor at the Poetry Foundation, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Believer, Details, Paste, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and The Stranger. Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder is his first novel.
Author: Julie Halpern
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780312653071
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
While looking for new friends, Jessie's surprised to find the D&D crowd might be just what she needs.
Author: Rudolph Wurlitzer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781937512613
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The Drop Edge of Yonder begins in the mountains of Colorado and ends in the far reaches of the Northwest, a journey that includes the beginnings of a Mexican revolution, a voyage across the Gulf of Mexico to Panama, and up the coast of California to San Francisco and the gold fields. Along the trail, Zebulon becomes involved in a series of tragic love triangles, witnesses the death of his mother and father, and confronts the age-old questions of life, love, and death.
Author: Alan Madison
Publisher: Dragonfly Books
ISBN: 0307978044
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 41
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Book Description
It's hard to be Velma, the littlest Gratch, entering the first grade. That's because everyone has marvelous memories of her two older sisters, who were practically perfect first graders. Poor Velma—people can barely remember her name. But all that changes on a class trip to the magnificent Butterfly Conservatory—a place neither of her sisters has ever been. When a monarch roosts on Velma's finger and won't budge for days . . . well, no one will forget Velma ever again. Acclaimed and bestselling illustrator Kevin Hawkes and author Alan Madison celebrate everything butterfly—from migration to metamorphosis. Watch as Velma Gratch metamorphosizes from a timid first grader into a confident young scientist!
Author: Ian Hawkins
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597977128
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
The 95th Bomb Group (Heavy), the most highly decorated bomb group of World War II, participated in every major mission of the war in Europe from May 1943 through the warÆs end and was awarded an unprecedented three Presidential Unit Citations. Flying the celebrated B-17 Flying Fortress, the 95th was the first U.S. bomb group to bomb Berlinùa feat that put it on the centerfold of Life magazineùand the last group to lose a plane over Europe in World War II. Over six hundred men in the 95th never came home. The Wild Blue Yonder and Beyond is the first book to cover a World War II bomb group from its inception through the present day. Utilizing interviews with nearly a hundred air war veterans, dozens of unpublished crew memoirs, all the bomb groupÆs official mission reports from the National Archives, and nearly a hundred other sources, author Rob Morris (assisted by air war historian Ian Hawkins) provides a deep tactical and human understanding of the group. Also included are the stories of the veteransÆ wives and families, who fought a different kind of war at home, and the residents of Horham, whose tiny English village was suddenly on the warÆs front lines. Intensely human, exhaustively researched, and lovingly told, this book is certain to be a classic in the field and a resource for anyone interested in the workings of a World War II bomb group.
Author: Martin W. Bowman
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9780304364664
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
Lavishly illustrated, this fascinating and entertaining volume transports you back in time to hear firsthand accounts culled from hundreds of diaries, letters, and interviews with veterans. These are the captivating stories of the American airmen and British civilians and service personnel of World War II. In 1942, when the U.S. forces arrived in England, the young Americans were puzzled, amazed, and exasperated by the mysteries of British speech, food, manners--and plumbing, and the British were equally surprised by American ways. From decorated pilots to British civilians who, as children, were entertained on U.S. bases, come stories of comic cultural misunderstanding and terrifying bomber missions over Germany. This unique adventure celebrates the courage and spirit of the U.S. 8th Air Force and the friends they made in Britain.
Author: Alan Stern
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 125009898X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364
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Book Description
Called "spellbinding" (Scientific American) and "thrilling...a future classic of popular science" (PW), the up close, inside story of the greatest space exploration project of our time, New Horizons’ mission to Pluto, as shared with David Grinspoon by mission leader Alan Stern and other key players. On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than 3 billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond. Nothing like this has occurred in a generation—a raw exploration of new worlds unparalleled since NASA’s Voyager missions to Uranus and Neptune—and nothing quite like it is planned to happen ever again. The photos that New Horizons sent back to Earth graced the front pages of newspapers on all 7 continents, and NASA’s website for the mission received more than 2 billion hits in the days surrounding the flyby. At a time when so many think that our most historic achievements are in the past, the most distant planetary exploration ever attempted not only succeeded in 2015 but made history and captured the world’s imagination. How did this happen? Chasing New Horizons is the story of the men and women behind this amazing mission: of their decades-long commitment and persistence; of the political fights within and outside of NASA; of the sheer human ingenuity it took to design, build, and fly the mission; and of the plans for New Horizons’ next encounter, 1 billion miles past Pluto in 2019. Told from the insider’s perspective of mission leader Dr. Alan Stern and others on New Horizons, and including two stunning 16-page full-color inserts of images, Chasing New Horizons is a riveting account of scientific discovery, and of how much we humans can achieve when people focused on a dream work together toward their incredible goal.
