Colin Burgess offers a comprehensive yet personal look at the 1962 orbital mission of Wally Schirra aboard the spacecraft Sigma 7, the first book about this popular pioneering astronaut which explores his entire life and accomplishments. This continues the Pioneers in Early Spaceflight series, the volumes of which form an excellent record of Project Mercury's pioneering early phase of the Space Age. Schirra’s pre-NASA life is examined, as well as his training as a NASA astronaut and for his Mercury MA-8 flight. The 6-orbit flight of Sigma 7 is fully covered from its origins through to the spacecraft’s safe recovery from the ocean after a highly successful Mercury mission. Schirra’s participation on the Gemini 6 and Apollo 7 missions is also told, but in brief, and the book also relates his post-NASA life and activities through to his passing in 2007. The Mercury Seven occupy a unique spot in the history of human spaceflight, and Schirra is at last given his due as one of the contributing astronauts in this painstakingly researched book.

In the desert Southwest, Kimble Monroe and others fight for their lives against the "bugs," self-replicating, solar-powered, metal-eating machines.

At 7:15 a.m. on October 3, 1962, Project Mercury Astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr., in his Sigma 7 spacecraft, was launched into space and orbited the Earth six times, completing another step in the grand U.S. program to send a man to the Moon and then return him safely to Earth. Because of the brief durations of the previous Mercury flights, the astronauts spent the majority of their flight time in getting to orbit and preparing to leave orbit. Schirra's six-orbit mission lasted more than nine hours, which for the first time allowed an astronaut to experience an extended period of weightlessness. In addition, the time available allowed Schirra to engage in orbital manoeuvring, exercising the various manual and automatic control modes, and to spend time on photography and scientific experiments. After his return to the United States, Schirra described his Sigma 7 mission as "a text book flight." A compilation of inputs from engineering, operations and medical personnel had been integrated into a single flight plan, which Schirra then carried out exactly as he had trained. The unqualified success of this flight paved the way for the planned upcoming one-day mission, an important milestone on the journey to the Moon. In this book the Mission Press Kit and press releases are combined with the major post-mission reports to provide a comprehensive picture of the flight from the planning stages through to its successful completion. Sigma 7 - The NASA Mission Reports is taken directly from the NASA archives. It presents the details of the Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, the overall Project Mercury game plan, astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and all of the many professional support people and facilities that went into making the mission a complete success. Includes a CD-ROM featuring: An exclusive interview with Mercury Astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr; The NASA movie -- Flight of Sigma 7; NASA movie -- Unmanned Mercury Missions; NASA Document (pdf) -- Space Medicine in Project Mercury.

With more than six and a half million copies in print, the Hardy Boys add up to super sales. When the only copies of director Simon Devoreaux's latest blockbuster film are stolen, the worlds of science fiction and fantasy become dangerously real to Frank and Joe as they investigate the crime.