Dr. Ryan Stone is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky. On a seemingly routine spacewalk, the shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left, and the only way home may be to go further...

The Military: Travel with the Marines in some of the biggest, toughest vehicles around! Explore the military vehicles that transport, protect and perform specialized jobs - from troop carries to weapons carriers, mobile communications to field ambulance. You'll march over land and sea in the Amphibious Assault Vehicle, see the many uses of the M998 Humvee, and haul broken-down tanks in the LVS Draggin' Wagon. The Space Shuttle: Explore the universe...

Discusses the development of reusable spacecraft and how they have been used and describes the typical flight of a space shuttle.

"On February 1, 2003, the unthinkable happened. The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated 37 miles above Texas, seven brave astronauts were killed and America's space program, always an eyeblink from disaster, suffered its second catastrophic in-flight failure. Unlike the Challenger disaster 17 years earlier, Columbia's destruction left the nation one failure away from the potential abandonment of human space exploration. Media coverage in the immediate...

Explains, using drawings and diagrams, the new era of space technology that began officially in 1981, with the maiden flight of the space shuttle "Columbia, " the world's first reusable spacecraft.

Discusses the early years of travel in space shuttles, including the construction of the first shuttles and the training of the crews.

"This superbly designed and lavishly illustrated book marks a special moment in history: the final mission of the space shuttle. Noted space and science author Piers Bizony has put together a retrospective that covers all 134 space shuttle missions, including the final flight of the shuttle, which is scheduled for September 2010. In addition to covering every space shuttle mission, the book also covers the development and design of the space shuttle,...