Test Gods
Tragedy and Triumph in the New Space Race
Published on 6. May 2021
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-1-78633-185-4 (ISBN)
Description
Meet the astronauts leading the way to a new world of space travel.
'Masterly' New York Times
'Riveting' Scott Kelly
'Remarkable' The Times
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When Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, his goal was simple: to offer paying customers a trip to space by the end of the decade. Seventeen years, countless delays, and one catastrophic crash later, his space tourism dream may finally be on the verge of becoming a reality.
New Yorker journalist Nicholas Schmidle knows that story intimately. He spent nearly four years embedded with Virgin Galactic at its California hangar, meeting the individuals working to make commercial space travel possible.
Now, Schmidle offers the definitive account of life inside the new space race. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with Virgin's lead test pilot, Mark Stucky, Test Gods describes the making of a modern astronaut. Schmidle recounts Stucky's life - from starry-eyed youth to NASA, the Air Force, and Virgin Galactic; and through dozens of gruelling test flights to his first successful trip beyond the earth's atmosphere.
Along the way, we meet the colourful cast of engineers, executives and mechanics battling to take Virgin to space. There's Branson, who emerges as an excitable if overoptimistic evangelist for commercial space travel. There's Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic's grounded, unflappable president. And there's Mike Alsbury, the pilot whose momentary miscalculation sends his aircraft crashing into the Mojave Desert - making him one of the first casualties of the new space race.
The result is a compelling examination of the inner lives of a new generation of astronauts. Theirs is a world where the line between lunacy and genius is blurred, and where no sacrifice is too great in pursuit of the dream of space travel.
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'Adventure in its purest form - rich with risk, courage and friendships.' Bear Grylls
'A hurtling narrative . . . A fitting twenty-first-century sequel to The Right Stuff.' Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain
'So exciting. A new generation with The Right Stuff.' Dan Snow
'Masterly' New York Times
'Riveting' Scott Kelly
'Remarkable' The Times
__
When Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, his goal was simple: to offer paying customers a trip to space by the end of the decade. Seventeen years, countless delays, and one catastrophic crash later, his space tourism dream may finally be on the verge of becoming a reality.
New Yorker journalist Nicholas Schmidle knows that story intimately. He spent nearly four years embedded with Virgin Galactic at its California hangar, meeting the individuals working to make commercial space travel possible.
Now, Schmidle offers the definitive account of life inside the new space race. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with Virgin's lead test pilot, Mark Stucky, Test Gods describes the making of a modern astronaut. Schmidle recounts Stucky's life - from starry-eyed youth to NASA, the Air Force, and Virgin Galactic; and through dozens of gruelling test flights to his first successful trip beyond the earth's atmosphere.
Along the way, we meet the colourful cast of engineers, executives and mechanics battling to take Virgin to space. There's Branson, who emerges as an excitable if overoptimistic evangelist for commercial space travel. There's Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic's grounded, unflappable president. And there's Mike Alsbury, the pilot whose momentary miscalculation sends his aircraft crashing into the Mojave Desert - making him one of the first casualties of the new space race.
The result is a compelling examination of the inner lives of a new generation of astronauts. Theirs is a world where the line between lunacy and genius is blurred, and where no sacrifice is too great in pursuit of the dream of space travel.
__
'Adventure in its purest form - rich with risk, courage and friendships.' Bear Grylls
'A hurtling narrative . . . A fitting twenty-first-century sequel to The Right Stuff.' Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain
'So exciting. A new generation with The Right Stuff.' Dan Snow
Reviews / Votes
Adventure in its purest form - rich with risk, courage and friendships. -- BEAR GRYLLS A Right Stuff for our moment of space travel . . . Riveting . . . A deeply reported and deeply personal book. It is a masterly work. * New York Times Book Review * Riveting . . . This is the book about the new space race you've been waiting to read. An instant classic. -- SCOTT KELLY, astronaut and author of Endurance An absolute thrill . . . A hugely ambitious feat of reporting and storytelling, and a fitting twenty-first century sequel to The Right Stuff. -- PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain Unique, fascinating, compulsively readable, brilliantly reported with unprecedented access, a kick-ass adventure story . . . Just strap yourself in and get ready for one helluva ride. -- BUZZ BISSINGER, author of Friday Night Lights So exciting. A new generation with The Right Stuff. -- DAN SNOW The book promises to profile the test pilots risking everything for grand dreams of space. What it actually does is much more interesting . . . Schmidle's care over terrestrial scenes sets this book apart from more familiar representations of airborne masculinity. * Washington Post * A remarkable new book about the modern space race. * The Times * Does an admirable job of taking readers behind the scenes at Virgin Galactic . . . We get a sense of the precariousness of Virgin Galactic's spaceflight technology. * ArsTechnica *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cornerstone
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 243 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
687 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78633-185-4 (9781786331854)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Nicholas Schmidle writes for the New Yorker and is the author of To Live or To Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Atlantic, Slate, Washington Post, and many others. Schmidle has been a National Magazine Award finalist, a two-time Livingston Award finalist, and winner of a Kurt Schork Award. He is a former fellow at the Institute of Current World Affairs, the New America Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and was resident at the Rockefeller's Foundation's Bellagio Center. In 2017, Schmidle was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University. He currently lives in London with his family.