Recounts the history of the silicon disc which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission, and displays the messages from the United States and seventy-three other countries etched on the disc.

In the years between the historic first moon landing by Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969, and his death at age 82 on August 25, 2012, Neil Armstrong received hundreds of thousands of cards and letters from all over the world, congratulating him, praising him, requesting pictures and autographs, and asking him what must have seemed to him to be limitless—and occasionally intrusive—questions. Of course, all the famous astronauts received fan mail, but the sheer volume Armstrong had to deal with for more than four decades after his moon landing was staggering. Today, the preponderance of those letters—some 75,000 of them—are preserved in the archives at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man on the Moon publishes a careful sampling of these letters—roughly 400—reflecting the various kinds of correspondence that Armstrong received along with representative samples of his replies. Selected and edited by James R. Hansen, Armstrong’s authorized biographer and author of the New York Times best seller First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, this collection sheds light on Armstrong’s enduring impact and offers an intimate glimpse into the cultural meanings of human spaceflight. Readers will explore what the thousands of letters to Neil Armstrong meant not only to those who wrote them, but as a snapshot of one of humankind’s greatest achievements in the twentieth century. They will see how societies and cultures projected their own meanings onto one of the world’s great heroes and iconic figures.

“Far more than a history of lunar exploration . . . [Hurt] is at his best in the deft sketches of the astronauts—as they were and as they became.”—Chicago Tribune Between December 1968 and December 1972, twenty-four men captured the imagination of the world as they voyaged to the moon. In For All Mankind, Harry Hurt III presents a dramatic, engrossing, and expansive account of those journeys. Based on extensive research and exclusive interviews with the Apollo astronauts, For All Mankind remains one of the most comprehensive and revealing firsthand accounts of space travel ever assembled. In their own words, the astronauts share the sights, sounds, thoughts, fears, hopes, and dreams they experienced during their incredible voyages. In a compelling narrative structured as one trip to the moon, Harry Hurt recounts all the drama and danger of the lunar voyages, from the anxiety of the astronauts’ prelaunch procedures through the euphoria of touchdown on the lunar surface. Updated with a new introduction by the author for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, For All Mankind is both an extraordinary adventure story and an important historical document. “Hurt’s timely book is like an instant replay of the dramatic moon flight years . . . Hurt tells us of the hardships and the successes of the Apollo program, the remarkable journey to the moon, of the astronauts and technicians who made it possible and the goals of the nation in space.”—Houston Chronicle “The meat here lies in the lunar voyage itself, an irresistible mix of danger, courage, tedium, and spectacle, evoked with unprecedented detail by those who went there.”—Kirkus Reviews

Mankind has scattered throughout the stars, forming thousands of civilizations at various stages of development. Fleet Command is attempting to reunite humanity through the ARCNet, an interstellar network that provides near-instantaneous communication over any distance. But as the Intrepid and her crew fly farther from Alliance-controlled space, a new threat appears. The Phalanx of Doom, an ancient foe long-relegated to the realm of comic book villainy, has been reborn. It possesses a new weapon that can alter minds, and Alliance citizens are turning on one another in violent acts of terror as Fleet Command scrambles to find the cause. We Were Promised Starships is a darkly-comedic sci-fi adventure that spans star systems and cyberspace. Join the crew of the Intrepid as they are swept into an interstellar conflict in Jason D. Reed’s debut novel

Scientists and other keen observers of the natural world sometimes make or write a statement pertaining to scientific activity that is destined to live on beyond the brief period of time for which it was intended. This book serves as a collection of these statements from great philosophers and thought–influencers of science, past and present. It allows the reader quickly to find relevant quotations or citations. Organized thematically and indexed alphabetically by author, this work makes readily available an unprecedented collection of approximately 18,000 quotations related to a broad range of scientific topics.

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While students and general readers typically cannot relate to esoteric definitions of science fiction, they readily understand the genre as a literature that characteristically deals with subjects such as new inventions, space, robot and aliens. This book looks at science fiction in precisely this manner, with twenty-one chapters that each deal with a subject that is repeatedly addressed in science fiction of recent centuries. Based on a packet of original essays that the author assembled for his classes, the book could serve as a supplemental textbook in science fiction classes, but also contains material of interest to science fiction scholars and others devoted to the genre. In some cases, chapters offer thorough surveys of numerous works involving certain subjects, such as imagined vehicles, journeys beneath the Earth and undersea adventures, discovering intriguing patterns in the ways that various writers developed their ideas. When comprehensive coverage of ubiquitous topics such as robots, aliens and the planet Mars is impossible, chapters focus on major themes referencing selected texts. A conclusion discusses other science fiction subjects that were omitted for various reasons, and a bibliography lists additional resources for the study of science fiction in general and the topics of each chapter.