As Lucy Kincheloe, an astronaut married to another astronaut and a mother of two young children, prepares to achieve her dream of space flight aboard the shuttle, her personal life begins to unravel.

From the author of the acclaimed and best-selling The Gates of the Alamo, a novel of extraordinary power about what it’s like, and what it means, to journey into space as one of today’s astronauts. At the novel’s center: Lucy Kincheloe, an astronaut married to an astronaut, the loving mother of two young children, with a fierce ambition to excel in the space program. Her husband, Brian, a rigorous man whose dreams of glory have been blighted by two star-crossed missions. Walt Womack, the steady, unflappable leader of the training team that prepares Lucy for her first shuttle flight. Lucy has devoted years of intense and focused effort to win her place on a mission, but as her lifelong dream of flying in space comes true, her familiar world appears to be falling apart around her. Her marriage is deteriorating. Her son’s asthma is growing more serious. Her relationship with Walt Womack is becoming dangerously intimate. And when at last she is in space, 240 miles above the earth, and an accident renders the world she left behind appallingly distant—perhaps unreachable—her spirit is tested in gripping and unexpected ways. In The Gates of the Alamo, Stephen Harrigan’s narrative authority brought a vanished nineteenth-century Texas to vibrant life. In Challenger Park, he does the same with the world of space flight, bringing us up close to the lives—the risks, the friendships, the rituals, the training—of the astronauts and the people who work with them. Harrigan has written an exciting—indeed a thrilling—novel about the contrary pulls of home and adventure, reality and dreams, and the unimaginable experience, the joys and terrors and revelations, of space flight itself.

The recent 50th anniversaries of the first human spaceflights by the Soviet Union and the United States, and the 30th anniversary of the launching of the first U.S. Space Shuttle mission, have again brought to mind the pioneering accomplishments of the first quarter century of humans in space. Historians, political scientists and others have extensively examined the technical, programmatic and political history of human spaceflight from the 1960s to the 1980s, but work is only beginning on the social and cultural history of the pioneering era. One rapidly developing area of recent scholarship is the examination of the images of spacefarers in the media, government propaganda and popular culture. How was space travel imagined in the visual media on the cusp of human spaceflights? How were astronauts and cosmonauts represented in official and quasi-official media portraits? And how were those images reproduced and transformed by in the imagination of film-makers, movie producers, popular writers, and novelists? Spacefarers addresses these questions with nine contributions from scholars in the field of aerospace history, Russian and American history, and English literature. These essays are preceded by an introduction by the editor, who discusses their place in the historiography of spaceflight and social and cultural history. The book will have potential appeal to a wide variety of scholars in history, literature and the social sciences and will include a number of striking visual images.

The Not For Tourists Guide to Chicago divides Chi-Town into sixty mapped neighborhoods. Every map is dotted with user-friendly NFT icons that plot the nearest essential services and entertainment locations, while providing important information on things like kid-friendly activities, public transportation, restaurants, bars, and Chicago’s art scene. The book also includes: · A foldout highway map · Sections on the North Side, Near North Side, Near West Side, the Greater Loop, the South Side, and Greater Chicago · More than 150 neighborhood and city maps · Details on bookstores and landmarks It’s the only key to the Windy City that Rahm Emanuel can’t give you.

The Not For Tourists Guide to Chicago is a map-based, neighborhood-by-neighborhood dream guide that divides Chi-Town into sixty mapped neighborhoods from Gold Coast and Lincoln Park to Wrigleyville and Lakeview. Designed to lighten the load of already street-savvy locals, commuters, business travelers, and yes, tourists too, every map is dotted with user-friendly NFT icons that plot the nearest essential services and entertainment locations, while providing important information on things like kid-friendly activities, public transportation, restaurants, bars, and Chicago’s art scene. Need to find the best deep-dish pizza hideouts around? NFT has you covered. How about a list of the top sports attractions in the famously sports-crazy city? We’ve got that, too. The nearest beach, jazz club, coffee shop, or bookstore—whatever you need—NFT puts it at your fingertips. This book also features: • A foldout highway map • Sections on the North Side, Near North Side, Near West Side, the Greater Loop, the South Side, and Greater Chicago • More than 150 neighborhood and city maps It’s the only key to the Windy City that Rahm Emanuel can’t give you.

The Texas Gulf Coast is one of the most outstanding birding locations in North America. From whooping cranes to sandhill cranes, ducks, geese, raptors and the hundreds of song birds that migrate every year to the Texas Gulf make this a birder's paradise. There are numerous public sites that make for easy birding. Each year, during the last week of February, there is a Whooping Crane Festival in Port Aransas and Mustang Island that attracts thousands of birders. It features workshops, demonstrations, speakers, and many guided birding trips to local birding locations. Jim Foster is a noted birder. He describes each birding trail with a list of key birds, the best time of year to visit each trail, the type of terrain, size, and complete directions to each area, many with maps of each trail. Texas is one of the four best birding states in the U.S. with over 2.5 million resident birders and thousands of non-resident birders who visit the state each year. Currently there are over 51 million birders in the United States and over 20 million travel out of their state each year to view birds. Birding Trails Texas: Gulf Coast is a must book for all birders.

With details on everything from the Magnificent Mile to Wicker Park, this is the only guide a native or traveler needs. The Not For Tourists Guide to Chicago is a map-based, neighborhood-by-neighborhood dream guide that divides Chi-town into 60 mapped neighborhoods from Gold Coast and Lincoln Park to Wrigleyville and Lakeview. Designed to lighten the load of already street-savvy locals, commuters, business travelers, and yes, tourists too, every map is dotted with user-friendly NFT icons that plot the nearest essential services and entertainment locations, while providing important information on things like kid-friendly activities, public transportation, restaurants, bars, and Chicago’s art scene. Need to find the best deep-dish pizza hideouts around? NFT has you covered. How about a list of the top sports attractions in the famously sports-crazy city? We’ve got that, too. The nearest beach, jazz club, coffee shop, or bookstore—whatever you need—NFT puts it at your fingertips. This book also features: • A foldout highway map • Sections on the North Side, Near North Side, Near West Side, the Greater Loop, the South Side, and Greater Chicago • More than 150 neighborhood and city maps It’s the only key to the Windy City that Rahm Emanuel can’t give you.