What they didn't want you to know

"We all watched in shock and disbelief when "Challenger "was lost. Probably no one felt more disappointment and regret than Allan McDonald, who had warned us not to launch that day. His story tells of loss, grief, and the eventual rebuilding and recovery."--Robert "Hoot" Gibson, former Space Shuttle pilot and commander

"A major contribution to a difficult episode in the history of human spaceflight."--Roger D. Launius, Division of Space History, Smithsonian Institution

"McDonald tells the heartbreaking tale of how he saw his words of warning ignored, and the fateful consequences of that decision."--Donald C. Elder III, Eastern New Mexico University

On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle "Challenger," despite warnings against doing so by many individuals, including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of "Challenger" on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation's collective memory.

In "Truth, Lies, and O-Rings," McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center. As he fought to draw attention to the real reasons behind the disaster, he was the only one targeted for retribution by both NASA and his employer, Morton Thiokol, Inc., makers of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters. In this whistle-blowing yet rigorous and fair-minded book, McDonald, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James R. Hansen, addresses "all" of the factors that led to the accident, some of which were never included in NASA's Failure Team report submitted to the Presidential Commission.

"Truth, Lies, and O-Rings" is the first look at the "Challenger" tragedy and its aftermath from someone who was on the inside, recognized the potential disaster, and tried to prevent it. It also addresses the early warnings of very severe debris issues from the first two post-"Challenger" flights, which ultimately resulted in the loss of "Columbia" some fifteen years later.

First published in 1995 as volume 4 in the NASA "Monograph in Aerospace History" series. This study contains photographs and illustrations.

On the heels of their six-time Academy Award (R)-winning smash, La La Land, Oscar (R)-winning director Damien Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling reteam for Universal Pictures' First Man, the riveting story of NASA's mission to land a man on the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong and the years 1961-1969. A visceral, first-person account, based on the book by James R. Hansen, the movie explores the sacrifices and the cost-on Armstrong and on the nation-of one of the most dangerous missions in history. First Man: The Annotated Screenplay is the official companion to the movie, and features a wealth of stunning photography, alongside the full shooting script. Academy Award (R)-winning screenwriter Josh Singer (Spotlight) and James R. Hansen, whose book First Man is the only authorized biography of Armstrong, provide an in-depth commentary on the challenges of dramatizing a fact-based historical motion picture. Exclusive annotations separate those facts from the dramatic fictions the filmmakers utilized, as well as explain the overarching dramatic choices made in telling the story of the man behind the icon.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The First Man comes a sweeping saga involving two extraordinary—and extraordinarily different—adventurers who have only one thing in common: the ambition to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat . . . alone.  In this bracing adventure tale, the story of John Fairfax and Tom McLean are woven together for the first time. Fairfax would set off from the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa with his sights on Florida. McClean charted a course from Newfoundland to Ireland. The two men couldn’t have been more different. John Fairfax was a golden-haired playboy, gambler, whiskey, gun smuggler, and ex-pirate who blamed his boat often, and who brazenly took time off from his goal of reaching America to hop aboard large ships for a drink, a shower, and good food. He courted the press like a modern-day Richard Branson or Elon Musk. The egoless Tom McClean was an orphan with a tough, Dickensian childhood, who ran off to become a British paratrooper and later joined the SAS (his training rivalled the U.S. Navy Seals). Tom was a purist who loved his boat Silver and never once took time off from rowing to sun himself on a remote beach or jump aboard a cruise ship. After 70 days, he landed on the rocky coast of Ireland to no fanfare and headed straight to the nearest pub. Though the two men’s remarkable transoceanic journeys seem pulled from a different era, both embarked within days of the first landing on the Moon: July 20th, 1969. Filled with gale-force winds, backbreaking effort, menacing sharks, playful dolphins, awing natural beauty, great mishaps, failed equipment, hypothermia, near-drowning, the fighting of mental and physical lethargy, creative problem-solving, phantom illusions on the water, and glorious moments of bliss, Completely Mad stands alongside other classics of ocean adventure.  With gripping and insightful prose, James R. Hansen brings to life Fairfax and McLean's expeditions, from their battle with the elements to their own inner demons.  Completely Mad is a nail-biting, epic tale of endurance, and readers will be gripped until the end to find out who won. 

Artfully curated by James R. Hansen, A Reluctant Icon: Letters to Neil Armstrong is a companion volume to Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind, collecting hundreds more letters Armstrong received after first stepping on the moon until his death in 2012. Providing context and commentary, Hansen has assembled the letters by the following themes: religion and belief; anger, disappointment, and disillusionment; quacks, conspiracy theorists, and ufologists; fellow astronauts and the world of flight; the corporate world; celebrities, stars, and notables; and last messages.Taken together, both collections provide fascinating insights into the world of an iconic hero who took that first giant leap onto lunar soil willingly and thereby stepped into the public eye with reluctance. Space enthusiasts, historians, and lovers of all things related to flight will not want to miss this book.

He walked on the Moon. He flew six space missions in three different programs--more than any other human. He served with NASA for more than four decades. His peers called him the ""astronaut's astronaut."" Enthusiasts of space exploration have long waited for John Young to tell the story of his two Gemini flights, his two Apollo missions, the first-ever Space Shuttle flight, and the first Spacelab mission. Forever Young delivers all that and more: Young's personal journey from engineering graduate to fighter pilot, to test pilot, to astronaut, to high NASA official, to clear-headed predictor of the fate of Planet Earth. Young, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James Hansen, recounts the great episodes of his amazing flying career in fascinating detail and with wry humor. He portrays astronauts as ordinary human beings and NASA as an institution with the same ups and downs as other major bureaucracies. He frankly discusses the risks of space travel, including what went wrong with the Challenger and Columbia shuttles. Forever Young is one of the last memoirs produced by an early American astronaut. It is the first memoir written by a chief of the NASA astronaut corps. Young's experiences and candor make this book indispensable to everyone interested in the U.S. space program.

The airplane ranks as one of history's most ingenious and phenomenal inventions. It has surely been one of the most world changing. How ideas about aerodynamics first came together and how the science and technology evolved to forge the airplane into the revolutionary machine that it became is the epic story told in this six-volume series, The Wind and Beyond: A Documentary Journey through the History of Aerodynamics in America. This first volume covers the impact of aerodynamic development on the evolution of the airplane in America. Volume II explores the airplane design revolution of the 1920s and 1930s and the quest for improved airfoils. Subsequent volumes cover the aerodynamics of airships, flying boats, rotary-wing aircraft, breaking the sound barrier, and more.

How ideas about aerodynamics first developed and how the science and technology evolved to forge the airplane into the revolutionary machine that it became is the epic story told in this projected six-volume series.

How ideas about aerodynamics first developed and how the science and technology evolved to forge the airplane into the revolutionary machine that it became is the epic story told in this projected six-volume series.

One of the most critical technical decisions made during the conduct of Project Apollo was the method of flying to the Moon, landing on the surface, and returning to Earth. Within NASA during this debate several modes emerged. The one eventually chosen was lunar-orbit rendezvous (LOR), a proposal to send the entire lunar spacecraft up in one launch. It would head to the Moon, enter into orbit, and dispatch a small lander to the lunar surface. It was the simplest of the various methods, both in terms of development and operational costs, but it was risky. Since rendezvous would take place in lunar, instead of Earth, orbit there was no room for error or the crew could not get home. Moreover, some of the trickiest course corrections and maneuvers had to be done after the spacecraft had been committed to a circumlunar flight. Between the time of NASA's conceptualization of the lunar landing program and the decision in favor of LOR in 1962, a debate raged between advocates of the various methods. John C. Houbolt, an engineer at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was one of the most vocal of those supporting LOR and his campaign in 1961 and 1962 helped to shape in a fundamental way the deliberations. This monograph is an important contribution to the study of NASA history in general, and the process of accomplishing a large scale technological program (in this case Apollo) in particular. In many ways, the lunar mode decision was an example of heterogeneous engineering, a process that recognizes that technological issues are also simultaneously organizational, economic, social, and political. Various interests often clash in the decision-making process as difficult calculations have to be made and decisions taken. What perhaps should be suggested is that a complex web or system of ties between various people, institutions, and interests brought forward the lunar-orbit rendezvous mode of going to the Moon in the 1960s.

One of the most critical technical decisions made during the conduct of Project Apollo was the method of flying to the Moon, landing on the surface, and returning to Earth. Within NASA during this debate several modes emerged. The one eventually chosen was lunar-orbit rendezvous (LOR), a proposal to send the entire lunar spacecraft up in one launch. It would head to the Moon, enter into orbit, and dispatch a small lander to the lunar surface. It was the simplest of the various methods, both in terms of development and operational costs, but it was risky. Since rendezvous would take place in lunar, instead of Earth, orbit there was no room for error or the crew could not get home. Moreover, some of the trickiest course corrections and maneuvers had to be done after the spacecraft had been committed to a circumlunar flight. Between the time of NASA's conceptualization of the lunar landing program and the decision in favor of LOR in 1962, a debate raged between advocates of the various methods. John C. Houbolt, an engineer at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was one of the most vocal of those supporting LOR and his campaign in 1961 and 1962 helped to shape in a fundamental way the deliberations. The monograph that is printed here is an important contribution to the study of NASA history in general, and the process of accomplishing a largescale technological program (in this case Apollo) in particular. In many ways, the lunar mode decision was an example of heterogeneous engineering, a process that recognizes that technological issues are also simultaneously organizational, economic, social, and political. Various interests often clash in the decision-making process as difficult calculations have to be made and decisions taken. What perhaps should be suggested is that a complex web or system of ties between various people, institutions, and interests brought forward the lunar-orbit rendezvous mode of going to the Moon in the 1960s. This is the fourth publication in a new series of special studies prepared by the NASA History Office. The Monographs in Aerospace History series is designed to provide a wide variety of investigations relative to the history of aeronautics and space. These publications are intended to be tightly focused in terms of subject, relatively short in length, and reproduced in an inexpensive format to allow timely and broad dissemination to researchers in aerospace history.

First published in 1995 as volume 4 in the NASA "Monograph in Aerospace History" series. This study contains photographs and illustrations.

He walked on the Moon. He flew six space missions in three different programs--more than any other human. He served with NASA for more than four decades. His peers called him the ""astronaut's astronaut."" Enthusiasts of space exploration have long waited for John Young to tell the story of his two Gemini flights, his two Apollo missions, the first-ever Space Shuttle flight, and the first Spacelab mission. Forever Young delivers all that and more: Young's personal journey from engineering graduate to fighter pilot, to test pilot, to astronaut, to high NASA official, to clear-headed predictor of the fate of Planet Earth. Young, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James Hansen, recounts the great episodes of his amazing flying career in fascinating detail and with wry humor. He portrays astronauts as ordinary human beings and NASA as an institution with the same ups and downs as other major bureaucracies. He frankly discusses the risks of space travel, including what went wrong with the Challenger and Columbia shuttles. Forever Young is one of the last memoirs produced by an early American astronaut. It is the first memoir written by a chief of the NASA astronaut corps. Young's experiences and candor make this book indispensable to everyone interested in the U.S. space program.

On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Challenger, despite warnings against doing so by many individuals, including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of Challenger on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation's collective memory. In Truth, Lies, and O-Rings, McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center. As he fought to draw attention to the real reasons behind the disaster, he was the only one targeted for retribution by both NASA and his employer, Morton Thiokol, Inc., makers of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters. In this whistle-blowing yet rigorous and fair-minded book, McDonald, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James R. Hansen, addresses all of the factors that led to the accident, some of which were never included in NASA's Failure Team report submitted to the Presidential Commission. Truth, Lies, and O-Rings is the first look at the Challenger tragedy and its aftermath from someone who was on the inside, recognized the potential disaster, and tried to prevent it. It also addresses the early warnings of very severe debris issues from the first two post-Challenger flights, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Columbia some fifteen years later.