Air & Space Month Books
Discover thrilling books that explore the wonders of space and the incredible innovations of aircraft, past and future.
Rockets, missiles, and spacecraft of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Gives brief descriptive histories of rockets, missiles, spacecraft, and related artifacts on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Includes information on the early Congreve rockets; Goddard's experimental rockets; the German V-1s and V-2s; Sputnik, Explorer, and other satellites; the Mariner, Gemini, and Apollo projects; lunar surface equipment; Skylab; and more.
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Digital Book Number: DB016427
Aircraft of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution
Catalog includes descriptive articles about over sixty aircraft, many of them on display in the National Air and Space Museum, including the Bell UH-13J, the Cessna 180, the Fokker T-2, the Sikorsky XR-4, the famed Wright 1903 flyer, and the Spirit of St. Louis.
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Digital Book Number: DB017389
Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight
Dean recounts the history of American spaceflight, NASA, and Florida's Space Coast and reflects on what has been achieved. She interviews NASA workers, astronauts, and space fans alike, exploring the ramifications of the end of the American space shuttle program. Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. 2015.
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Digital Book Number: DB082410
The Airplane: How Ideas Gave Us Wings
Former curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum chronicles the innovations that solved technical challenges from aviation's conception to the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Discusses airplane construction: fuselage, wings, controls, propulsion, and landing gear. Portrays pioneers Sir George Cayley, Otto Lilienthal, Hugo Junkers, and others. 2008.
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Digital Book Number: DB070113
For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet
Mars and its secrets have fascinated and mystified humans since ancient times. Its vivid color and visibility to the naked eye, its geologic kinship with Earth, its potential as our best hope for settlement-Mars embodies everything that inspires us about space and space exploration. In this book, National Air and Space Museum Curator Matthew Shindell captures the majesty of the red planet and the work done by people on Earth to explore it. He connects our current period of human exploration of Mars to the work done through the centuries and across cultures by asking how the quest to understand Mars has shaped our knowledge of ourselves, our own planet, our solar system, and beyond. For the Love of Mars reveals why Mars has piqued scientists' interest for centuries. It brings to light how difficult and sometimes flawed martian discoveries could be for earth-bound planetary explorers and, by focusing on the human stories behind the telescopes and behind the robots we have come to know and love, shows how Mars exploration became more sophisticated through the years in ways that helped expand knowledge about other facets of space and the universe. A must read for everyone curious about Curiosity and the Red Planet.
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Digital Book Number: DB115290
Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War
A riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race. If the United States couldn't catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War--a perilous time when the Soviet Union built the wall in Berlin, tested nuclear bombs more destructive than any in history, and beat the United States to every major milestone in space. The race to the heavens seemed a race for survival--and America was losing. On February 20, 1962, when John Glenn blasted into orbit aboard Friendship 7, his mission was not only to circle the planet; it was to calm the fears of the free world and renew America's sense of self-belief. Mercury Rising re-creates the tension and excitement of a flight that shifted the momentum of the space race and put the United States on the path to the moon. Drawing on new archival sources, personal interviews, and previously unpublished notes by Glenn himself, Mercury Rising reveals how the astronaut's heroics lifted the nation's hopes in what Kennedy called the "hour of maximum danger."
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Digital Book Number: DB110864