This history of Johnson Space Center (JSC) is a detailed chronicle of the U.S. space program with emphasis on humans in space and on the ground. It realistically balances the role of the highly visible astronaut with the mammoth supporting team who provide the nuts, bolts, and gas to keep the train on the track. It recognizes the early political and technical geniuses who had the vision and ability to create NASA and JSC and keep them expanding at a rapid pace. The history of the Johnson Space Center focuses on an unusual slice of time and human affairs. It has been a time of great changes, the full impacts of which is not yet evident. American history and that of humankind has been irrevocably affected by spaceflight. Space has generated new technology, new materials, and a new process of thought about the Earth and the human potential. This book has a beginning and an end, but the story continues, perhaps through all time. Suddenly, a new tomorrow has come into being. In 1902 H.G. Wells observed that the past, “all that has been and is, is but the twilight of the dawn.” Today, because of the American space program, “the world is heavy with the promise of greater things.” Indeed, perhaps that day predicted by H.G. Wells has come to be: “when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon the Earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.” World events are catching up with the examples provided by the major manned space programs. Almost every astronaut and cosmonaut who circled planet Earth has observed that from orbit there are no national borders visible on this beautiful globe. All those fortunate enough to view Earth from the Moon were impressed with its similarity to a spacecraft and by its remoteness and insignificance in the Universe. These observations by humans in space have had a profound effect on humans on Earth and provide a strong unifying force for international space exploration. So as tomorrow comes, people of the Earth will inevitably step into the Universe and become true space people--citizens of Mars, the Moon, Venus, and beyond.

Picture of San Francisco life in the 1860s and 1870s with the action of the story set 25 years afterward.

This is a completely updated and revised version of a monograph published in 2002 by the NASA History Office under the original title Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes, 1958-2000. This new edition not only adds all events in robotic deep space exploration after 2000 and up to the end of 2016, but it also completely corrects and updates all accounts of missions from 1958 to 2000--Provided by publisher.

In a new introduction for this paperback edition (originally titled "The American Aerospace Industry"), Bilstein explains how international competition has affected American aerospace airline manufacturers and updates the controversy over the high cost of military aircraft, such as the F-22 Raptor.

In the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front, Elton E. Mackin’s memoirs are a haunting portrayal of war as seen through the eyes of a highly decorated Marine who fought in every Marine Brigade battle from Belleau Wood to the crossing of the Meuse on the eve of the Armistice. Praise for Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die “This beautifully written and truly gripping war memoir is a significant addition to battlefield literature. A minor classic . . . An altogether remarkable job [comparable] to Crane, Remarque and Mailer. Deserves the widest possible audience.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer “This immediate, eloquent report merit[s] comparison with Thomas Boyd’s Marine Corps [1923] classic Through the wheat.”—Publishers Weekly “A real curiosity: a highly mannered World War I diary, published nearly 80 years after being written and 20 years after its author’s death. Bright snapshots abound…sometimes a young man’s lyricism takes over [but] the horror of war never departs. The diary has the faults one expects, and the promise one prays for. A fine addition to WWI literature.”—Kirkus Reviews “A forthright, eloquent, and powerful memoir certain to become an enduring testament to the drama and tragedy of World War I. Threaded with no small measure of poetry, this superb memoir is sure to become a classic.”—Great Battles “A plain but powerful tale . . . [in] vivid prose loaded with details that bring the horrors of World War I to life, he tells an exceptional new version of the old story of battle transforming a boy into a veteran.”—American Library Association Booklist “To the ranks of Erich Maria Remarque, E.E. Cummings, John Dos Passos and Siegfried Sassoon, we must now add Elton Mackin . . . who, in a terse style reminiscent of Hemingway, [succeeds] in making someone unfamiliar with war truly now the frightfulness of the trenches and the greatness of the many men who fought in them.”—Marine Corps Gazette

The author, flight director in NASA's Mission Control, tells of the challenges in space flight from the very early years to the current time and of "his own bold suggestions about what we ought to be doing in space now."--Jacket.