Spaceman
Crown Archetype (Verlag)
978-0-451-49727-7 (ISBN)
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Or to look back on Earth from outer space and see the surprisingly precise line between day and night? Or to stand in front of the Hubble Space Telescope, wondering if the emergency repair you're about to make will inadvertently ruin humankind's chance to unlock the universe's secrets? Mike Massimino has been there, and in Spaceman he puts you inside the suit, with all the zip and buoyancy of life in microgravity.
Massimino's childhood space dreams were born the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Growing up in a working-class Long Island family, he catapulted himself to Columbia and then MIT, only to flunk his first doctoral exam and be rejected three times by NASA before making it through the final round of astronaut selection.
Taking us through the surreal wonder and beauty of his first spacewalk, the tragedy of losing friends in the Columbia shuttle accident, and the development of his enduring love for the Hubble Telescope-which he and his fellow astronauts were tasked with saving on his final mission-Massimino has written an ode to never giving up and the power of teamwork to make anything possible.
Spaceman invites us into a rare, wonderful world where science meets the most thrilling adventure, revealing just what having "the right stuff" really means.
Mike Massimino served as an astronaut with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 1996 to 2014. He is the veteran of two NASA space flights, STS-109 aboard Space Shuttle Columbia in March 2002 and STS-125 aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis in May 2009. Mike has costarred in the film Hubble IMAX 3D, played himself on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory , appeared on T he Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson . A graduate of Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mike currently lives in New York City.
From the Hardcover edition.
Mike Massimino served as a NASA Astronaut from 1996 until 2014 and flew in space twice: STS-109 on space shuttle Columbia in March 2002 and STS-125 on space shuttle Atlantis in May 2009 - the final two Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions. Mike became the first human to tweet from space, was the last human to work inside of Hubble, and set a team record with his crewmates for the most cumulative spacewalking time in a single space shuttle mission.
Mike has a recurring role as himself on The Big Bang Theory ; appears regularly on late night talk shows, news programs, and documentaries; and is a much sought after inspirational speaker. He received his BS from the Columbia University School of Engineering, and his two MS's and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He currently lives in New York City where he is an engineering professor at Columbia and an advisor at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum.
"Every generation of astronauts needs a storyteller -- a person with wit, humor, and passion who has lived our collective dreams of space exploration and returned to tell us all about it. Mike Massimino is that person. He's that astronaut. And this is his story."-Neil deGrasse Tyson
"Mike Massimino writes about space with an astronaut's eye and an engineer's precision. You'll be impressed with his journey and his perspective on where a well-developed space program can take us in the future."-Senator John Glenn
"Inspired by moonwalkers, Mike grew up, became an astronaut, and fixed the Hubble Space Telescope, all while remaining some kinda' humble. You can't help but follow him from Long Island to the bottom of the spacewalk practice pool, then 350 miles up and back. He's a spaceman through and through; he tells how hard work can take you out of this world."-Bill Nye, the Science Guy, CEO of the Planetary Society
"Massimino's incredible journeys, filled with grit, courage, suspense and thrills, are told with such candor and delight, that for a brief moment I felt I'd finally made it to space too. Read this book and be inspired to reach for the impossible." -Brian Greene, Columbia University, author of The Fabric of the Cosmos
"An engaging and uplifting memoir that's sure to give readers a deeper appreciation for the U.S. space program and inspire some future astronauts." -Publishers Weekly
P R O L O G U E
A Science Fiction Monster
On March 1, 2002, I left Earth for the first time. I got on board the space shuttle Columbia and I blasted 350 miles into orbit. It was a big day, a day I'd been dreaming about since I was seven years old, a day I'd been training for nonstop since NASA had accepted me into the astronaut program six years earlier. But even with all that waiting and planning, I still wasn't ready. Nothing you do on this planet can ever truly prepare you for what it means to leave it.
Our flight, STS-109, was a servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. We were a crew of seven, five veterans and two rookies, me and my buddy Duane Carey, an Air Force guy. We called him Digger. Every astronaut gets an astronaut nickname. Because of my name and because I'm six feet three inches, everybody called me Mass.
Ours was going to be a night launch. At three in the morning, we walked out of crew quarters at Kennedy Space Center to where the astro van was waiting to take us out to the launchpad. This was only the second shuttle mission since the terrorist attacks of 9/11,and there were helicopters circling overhead and a team of SWAT guys standing guard with the biggest assault rifles I'd ever seen. Launches had always had tight security, but now it was even more so. Digger was standing right next to me. "Wow," he said, "look at the security. Maybe it's a 9/11 thing."
I said, "I don't know. I think they're here to make sure we actually get on."
I was starting to get nervous. What had I signed up for? I could swear that one of the SWAT guys was staring at me-not at potential terrorists, but right at me. It felt like his eyes were saying, Don't even think about running for it, buddy. It's too late now. You volunteered for this. Now get on my bus.
We got on and rode out to the launchpad, everything pitch-black all around us. The only light on the horizon was the shuttle itself, which got bigger and bigger as we approached, the orbiter and the two solid rocket boosters on each side of that massive rust-orange fuel tank, the whole thing lit up from below with floodlights.
The driver pulled up to the launchpad, let us out, then turned and high-tailed it out of the blast zone. The seven of us stood there, craning our necks, looking up at this gigantic spaceship towering seventeen stories high above the mobile launcher platform. I'd been out to the shuttle plenty of times for training, running drills. But the times I'd been near it, there was never any gas in the tank, the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen that make rocket fuel. They don't put it in until the night before, because once you add rocket fuel it turns into a bomb.
The shuttle was making these ungodly sounds. I could hear the fuel pumps working, steam hissing, metal groaning and twisting under the extreme cold of the fuel, which is hundreds of degrees below zero. Rocket fuel burns off at very low temperatures, sending huge billows of smoke pouring out. Standing there, looking up, I could feel the power of this thing. It looked like a beast waiting there for us.
The full realization of what we were about to do was starting to dawn on me. The veterans, the guys who'd flown before, they were in front of me, high-fiving each other, getting excited. I stared at them like Are they insane? Don't they see we're about to strap ourselves to a bomb that's going to blow us hundreds of miles into the sky?
I need to talk to Digger, I thought. Digger's a rookie like me, but he flew F‑16 fighter jets in the Gulf War. He's not afraid of anything. He'll make me feel better. I turned to him, and he was staring up at this thing with his jaw hanging down, his eyes wide open. It was like he was in a trance. He looked the way I felt. I said, "Digger."
No response. "Digger!" No response. "Dig
| Erscheinungsdatum | 30.09.2016 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | w. col. figs. |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 160 x 230 mm |
| Gewicht | 412 g |
| Themenwelt | Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie ► Astronomie / Astrophysik |
| Technik ► Luft- / Raumfahrttechnik | |
| Schlagworte | Astronaut • Astronauten • Astronauten / Kosmonauten • Astronauten / Kosmonauten; Berichte/Erinnerungen • Big Bang • Big Bang Theory • Columbia • famous astronaut • Gravity • Hubble Telescope • John Glenn • Long Island • MIT • Nasa • outer space • Raumfahrt; Berichte/Erinnerungen • space shuttle • space suit • vision test • Weightlessness • Zero Gravity |
| ISBN-10 | 0-451-49727-9 / 0451497279 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-451-49727-7 / 9780451497277 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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