NMC Library

Leaving orbit : notes from the last days of American spaceflight /

Dean, Margaret Lazarus, 1972-

Leaving orbit : notes from the last days of American spaceflight / Margaret Lazarus Dean. - 317 pages, 2 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 21 cm

Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-309).

Prologue: Air and space -- The beginnings of the future : this is Cape Canaveral -- What it felt like to walk on the Moon -- Good-bye, Discovery -- A brief history of the future -- Good-bye, Endeavour -- A brief history of spacefarers -- Good-bye, Atlantis -- The end of the future : wheel stop -- The future -- Epilogue -- Timeline of American spaceflight -- Judge's afterword / Robert Polito.

Leaving Orbit takes the measure of what American spaceflight has achieved while reckoning with its earlier witnesses, such as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Oriana Fallaci. Along the way, Dean meets NASA workers, astronauts, and space fans, gathering possible answers to the question: What does it mean that a spacefaring nation won't be going to space anymore? An elegy to the waning days of human spaceflight as we have known it.

Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize.

9781555977092 155597709X

2014960047


Space Shuttle Program (U.S.)
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.


Space flight.
Space shuttles--Accidents.


Outer space--Exploration--United States.

TL521.312 / .D43 2015

629.40973

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