Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Schmidle, Nicholas

Published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2021

About this Item

New condition navy blue boards with silver spine lettering, contained in a fine condition non price-clipped color photographic dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication; Preliminary Page Quotes; Prologue: Blue Zebra; Epilogue: Magic; Author's Note; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Acknowledgments; Illustration Credits; Index and About the Author. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs. "In the spirit of The Right Stuff, updated for the twenty-first century, Test Gods is an epic story about extreme bravery and sacrifice, about the thin line between lunacy and genius. Most of all, it is a story about the pursuit of meaning in our lives -- and the fulfillment of our dreams. Working from exclusive inside reporting, New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle tells the remarkable story of the test pilots, engineers, and visionaries behind Virgin Galactic's campaign to build a space tourism company. Schmidle follows a handful of characters -- Mark Stucky, Virgin's lead test pilot; Richard Branson, the eccentric billionaire funding the venture; Mike Moses, the grounded, unflappable president; Mike Alsbury, the test pilot killed in a fatal crash; and others -- through personal and professional dramas, in pursuit of their collective goal: to make space tourism a reality. Along the way, Schmidle weaves his relationship with his father -- a former fighter pilot and decorated war hero -- into the tragedies and triumphs that Branson's team confronts out in the Mojave desert as they design, build, and test-fly their private rocket ship. Gripping and novelistic, Test Gods leads us, through human drama, into a previously unseen world -- and beyond." -- from the inner front jacket flap. "If you want to know what being a test pilot truly looks and feels and even smells like, read this riveting book. Schmidle has done something remarkable, capturing all the visceral grit we experience inside the cockpit, in addition to all the tragedies and triumphs that we encounter along the way. This is the book about the New Space Race you've been waiting to read. An instant classic." -- Scott Kelly, astronaut and author. ". an absolutely stunning piece of work. The intimacy of this book is a testament to Schmidle's journalistic superpowers. He is more than a fly on the wall: he's immersed in the lives of these test pilots, and he's written a feverish, true-life thriller that burns with emotional energy." -- Martha Raddatz, co-anchor of This Week and author. "A hurtling narraative about the test pilots of the Virgin Galactic space program, Test Gods is a hugely ambitious feat of reporting and storytelling and a fitting twenty-first-century sequel to The Right Stuff. Schmidle captures not just the technical wizardry of the spaceships and the envelope-pushing prowess of the pilots, but also the very real costs, for the pilots and their families, of reaching for something beyond this world. This is a saga not just of bravery and derring-do, but of a kind of undaunted old-fashioned hope that feels all too rare these days." -- Patrick Radden Keefe, author. Seller Inventory # 006891

Bibliographic Details

Title: Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of...

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, New York

Publication Date: 2021

Binding: Hardcover

Illustrator: Iacobelli, James (jacket design); DiVenere, Jason (jacket photography)

Condition: New

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Edition: 1st Edition