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Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut
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About Test Gods: Virgin Galactic And The Making Of A
Product Description A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceIn the spirit of The Right Stuff, updated for the 21st 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. Review “A riveting account of the underreported commercial space race, which has up until now lacked a worthy storyteller…The sections of the book that narrate how Virgin Galactic gets to space are replete with white-knuckled descriptions of booster rockets, pilots braving the ‘transonic zone,’ everything you’d hope to read were Mailer or Wolfe alive today to tell the tale…[a] deeply reported and deeply personal book. It is a masterly work, a reminder of what should inspire us all.” ―The New York Times Book Review“[I]n a cinematic style that moves seamlessly in and out of characters’ inner monologues…[and] fluid, precise prose…[Schmidle drops] the journalist’s pretension of total detachment…Schmidle's care…sets this book apart from more familiar representations of airborne masculinity.”―The Washington Post “New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle unpacks the star-crossed space tourism company Virgin Galactic. The book focuses on the test pilots tasked with turning Richard Branson's hare-brained idea―a suborbital space trip in a small rocket dropped from a large plane―into a painstakingly engineered, catastrophically disaster-tested reality.”―GQ“Test Gods tells the story of Mark Stucky, the lead test pilot for Virgin Galactic, a space tourism startup in Mojave, California, as he…become[s] one of the rare non-NASA pilots to earn astronaut wings…At its center, however, it is a story of fathers and sons―and this emotional core ought to grab readers who might not care about rocket propellant or lifting surfaces or horizontal stabilizers…Test Gods is a human story…a gripping, comprehensive, and deeply felt book.” ―The American Scholar“It’s hard to know where to begin: Test Gods is unique, fascinating, compulsively readable, brilliantly reported with unprecedented access, a kick-ass adventure story of the last of the great swashbucklers addicted to speed and altitude. It is a journey unlike any I have ever read, as pulsating as it is poignant and personal. What makes a man routinely risk his life for a living umpteen miles above the clouds? What does he leave behind on earth? Cosmic questions that Schmidle answers with elegance and beauty and pace. Just strap yourself in and get ready for one helluva ride.”―Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights"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
