Piercing The Horizon By Sunny Tsiao (purdue University Press, 2017)
Merchant: Oxfam
Merchant's Category: Media> Books
Previously owned but in excellent condition, showing only very modest signs of shelf wear. Very small bumps to corners but otherwise looks almost new. A clean, bright and tight copy. We all know the names: Grissom, Armstrong, Cernan-legends of the space age whose names resonate with people around the world and whose deeds need no introduction. We know less about the men who led the organization that planned and began the US exploration of space: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Thomas O. Paine grew up an ordinary boy in northern California during the Great Depression of the 1930s. He would go on to serve as NASA's third administrator, leading the space agency through the first historic missions that sent astronauts on voyages away from Earth. On his watch, seven Apollo flights orbited our planet and five reached our moon. From those missions came the first of twelve men to walk on the moon. Years later, in 1985, the Reagan administration would call on Paine again to chair the nation's first-ever National Commission on Space. The Paine Commission Report of 1986 challenged twenty-first-century America to "lead the exploration and development of the space frontier, advancing science, technology, and enterprise, and building institutions and systems that make accessible vast new resources and support human settlements beyond Earth orbit, from the highlands of the Moon to the plains of Mars." In Piercing the Horizon, Sunny Tsiao masterfully delivers new insights into the behind-the-scenes drama of the space race. Tsiao examines how Paine's days as a World War II submariner fighting in the Pacific shaped his vision for the future of humankind in space. The book tells how Paine honed his skills as a pioneering materials engineer at the fabled postwar General Electric Company in the 1950s, to his dealings inside the halls of NASA and with Johnson, Nixon, and later, the Reagan and Bush administrations. As robotic missions begin leaving the earth, Tsiao invites the reader to take another look at the plans that Paine articulated regarding how America could have had humans on Mars by the year 2000 as the first step to the exploration of deep space. Piercing the Horizon provides provocative context to current conversations on the case for reaching Mars, settling our solar system, and continuing the exploration of space.
More details from Oxfam
Follow Oxfam to get news updates and products on your homepage.
Oxfam is being followed by 0 people.
Follow Oxfam
Delivery Details
Specific details for this product: No specific details given.General Delivery details for Oxfam:
Oxfam delivers only to the UK
�3.95 flat fee and free returns.
- UK Delivery only
- Free returns
No review added yet - be the first!
Reviews and Comments
If you own this product already, please write a quick review to help others:
Current Special Offer at Oxfam:
Comments and Feedback
This is an experimental quick comments form. Please use it to point out a mistake, tell us about a closed shop or a quick comment about the page you are on. Any comment/feedback left here may be added to the page if it is helpful.
Oxfam
Read more about Oxfam
Shop at Oxfam online! There are the usual Oxfam goodies as well as a huge selection of second hand and vintage clothes, music, dvds, books and homewares. Also find wedding favours, rare books, ceramics, stamps and coins.