Discusses American businessman Dennis Tito and his historic trip to the International Space Station on a Russian spacecraft as the first tourist to pay for space travel.

Details the journey of Dennis Tito, the wealthy businessman who made a trip into space by purchasing a seat aboard a Russian spacecraft.

The daring, revolutionary NASA that sent Neil Armstrong to the moon has lost its meteoric vision, says journalist and space enthusiast Greg Klerkx. NASA, he contends, has devolved from a pioneer of space exploration into a factionalized bureaucracy focused primarily on its own survival. And as a result, humans haven’t ventured beyond Earth orbit for three decades. Klerkx argues that after its wildly successful Apollo program, NASA clung fiercely to the spotlight by creating a government-sheltered monopoly with a few Big Aerospace companies. Although committed in theory to supporting commercial spaceflight, in practice it smothered vital private-sector innovation. In striking descriptions of space milestones spanning the golden 1960s Space Age and the 2003 Columbia tragedy, Klerkx exposes the “real” NASA and envisions exciting public-private cooperation that could send humans back to the moon and beyond.

This flagship work charts a complete chronological log of orbital manned spaceflight. Included are the X-15 "astroflights" of the 1960s, and the two 1961 Mercury and Redstone missions which were non-orbital. There is an image depicting each manned spaceflight, and data boxes containing brief biographies of all the space travelers. The main text is a narrative of each mission, its highlights and accomplishments, including the strange facts and humorous stories connected to every mission. The resulting book is a handy reference to all manned spaceflights, the names of astronauts and cosmonauts who flew on each mission, their roles and accomplishments.

The space race was a critical determining factor in the Cold War. After its Sputnik miracle, the Soviets’ loss of the race to the Moon undermined the international mystique of Communism and crushed the USSR’s dreams of world domination. America’s wildly successful Apollo program, by sharp contrast, brought America global glory and prestige—along with a plethora of “miracle technologies” that accelerated economic growth and strengthened US national security for half a century. We are now embroiled with a brutal and autocratic Communist China in a new cold war and second, far more consequential, race to the Moon—whichever country seizes the commanding heights of the moon will have preferential access to vast lunar resources that will determine the quality of life on Earth and the political and moral character of the human diaspora as it advances into the solar system. America should win Space Race 2.0 and is leading an international and commercial coalition to do so. Yet, Communist China is giving no ground even as its rockets soar above us. The clear risk: Timid and visionless policy makers in the White House and Congress may well surrender the ultimate high ground to the butchers of Beijing. Greg Autry and Peter Navarro have been warning of this competition for more than a decade. Both were influential in the construction of America’s triumphant space agenda during the Trump administration. In this book, they take you through the technology, economics, and history of this important topic and provide policy recommendations that will win the Space Race for America.

This book tells the stories of adventurers who have defied gravity and soared above the Earth, from pioneer aviators and astronauts to the free-falling fearlessness of Felix Baumgartner. Find out about the courage and skill of audacious aviators, and whether you've got what it takes to be an ultimate adventurer.

The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest man-made structure to orbit Earth and has been conducting research for close to a decade and a half. Yet it is only the latest in a long line of space stations and laboratories that have flown in orbit since the early 1970s. The histories of these earlier programs have been all but forgotten as the public focused on other, higher-profile adventures such as the Apollo moon landings. A vast trove of stories filled with excitement, danger, humor, sadness, failure, and success, Outposts on the Frontier reveals how the Soviets and the Americans combined strengths to build space stations over the past fifty years. At the heart of these scientific advances are people of both greatness and modesty. Jay Chladek documents the historical tapestry of the people, the early attempts at space station programs, and how astronauts and engineers have contributed to and shaped the ISS in surprising ways. Outposts on the Frontier delves into the intriguing stories behind the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory, the Almaz and Salyut programs, Skylab, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Spacelab, Mir station, Spacehab, and the ISS and gives past-due attention to Vladimir Chelomei, the Russian designer whose influence in space station development is as significant as Sergei Korolev's in rocketry. Outposts on the Frontier is an informative and dynamic history of humankind's first outposts on the frontier of space.