Destination: Russia. On the eve of the first manned mission to Mars, Secret agent Jack Stalwart learns that the mission's chief rocket engineer has disappeared. When he finds out that engineer is his father, Jack vows the kidnapper will live to regret it. Can Jack keep his cool to save the day?

On the eve of the first manned mission to Mars, a madman has kidnapped the space project's chief engineer. Can Secret Agent Jack Stalwart save the day and keep his cool when he finds out who the missing engineer is?

Jack finally receives a coded message from his brother Max, possibly detailing his whereabouts. But duty calls, and Jack is whisked away to the sweltering savannah of Kenya before he can decipher it. Once there, a wise and kind Masai chief alerts Jack to a series of elephant killings where the corpses have been robbed of their tusks. Jack must find the malevolent ring of poachers responsible before more of these endangered species are destroyed.

It was all part of man's greatest adventure--landing men on the Moon and sending a rover to Mars, finally seeing the edge of the universe and the birth of stars, and launching planetary explorers across the solar system to Neptune and beyond. The ancient dream of breaking gravity's hold and taking to space became a reality only because of the intense cold-war rivalry between the superpowers, with towering geniuses like Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolyov shelving dreams of space travel and instead developing rockets for ballistic missiles and space spectaculars. Now that Russian archives are open and thousands of formerly top-secret U.S. documents are declassified, an often startling new picture of the space age emerges: the frantic effort by the Soviet Union to beat the United States to the Moon was doomed from the beginning by gross inefficiency and by infighting so treacherous that Winston Churchill likened it to "dogs fighting under a carpet"; there was more than science behind the United States' suggestion that satellites be launched during the International Geophysical Year, and in one crucial respect, Sputnik was a godsend to Washington; the hundred-odd German V-2s that provided the vital start to the U.S. missile and space programs legally belonged to the Soviet Union and were spirited to the United States in a derring-do operation worthy of a spy thriller; despite NASA's claim that it was a civilian agency, it had an intimate relationship with the military at the outset and still does--a distinction the Soviet Union never pretended to make; constant efforts to portray astronauts and cosmonauts as "Boy Scouts" were often contradicted by reality; the Apollo missions to the Moon may have been an unexcelled political triumph and feat of exploration, but they also created a headache for the space agency that lingers to this day. This New Ocean is based on 175 interviews with Russian and American scientists and engineers; on archival documents, including formerly top-secret National Intelligence Estimates and spy satellite pictures; and on nearly three decades of reporting. The impressive result is this fascinating story--the first comprehensive account--of the space age. Here are the strategists and war planners; engineers and scientists; politicians and industrialists; astronauts and cosmonauts; science fiction writers and journalists; and plain, ordinary, unabashed dreamers who wanted to transcend gravity's shackles for the ultimate ride. The story is written from the perspective of a witness who was present at the beginning and who has seen the conclusion of the first space age and the start of the second.

David Lasser stands as one of the least-known but extraordinary pioneers of spaceflight. In 1930 he founded the American Interplanetary Society (AIAA) -- the same year he wrote this book -- the first book ever written in the English language to address the notion of spaceflight as a serious possibility. The book has not been in print since 1931 and yet it still stands up to scrutiny. The lucid style with which Lasser explains the basic concepts of rocketry make it a delight for anyone to read.

Five...four...three...two...one. Lift-off! What can Lizzie do when big-headed Jake challenges her to a race in space? She's GOT to beat him. But Jake has a super-duper, deluxe new spaceship that runs on special fuel... Zoom to Pluto and back with this super space story from award-winning author, Malorie Blackman.

Man, Medicine and Space is a wide-ranging philosophical and historical exploration of human activity in Space written for the interested general reader. It is not an encyclopedia, nor a textbook, but seeks to answer in plain language the question "What on Earth is Humanity doing in Space and why is it doing it?" As we enter a new Millennium many writers and thinkers are asking if Humanity's curiosity, science, and technology are really benign forces or if they serve the long-term interests of our species. This book gives , perhaps uniquely, resoundingly positive answers and suggests further that we may have after all discovered through science the true role of Humanity in a evolving Universe. In a time of uncertainty and rising superstition this book proposes a Destiny for Mankind which, unlike previous such programs, can be built by vision, hard work and discipline, and which threatens no others - human or animal. In summary, it offers a positive future for the long term, which can realize the unlocked creative potential for of our species. It is a supreme Humanist affirmation for our times.