Table of Contents
Foreword 7
Chapter 1 Nazis in Space: Project Silverbird 9
Chapter 2 Red Moon: Countering the Communist Threat on Earth and in Space 21
Chapter 3 Das Marsprojekt: Red Planet Armada 35
Chapter 4 Project Orion: We Come in Peace (With Nuclear Bombs!) 55
Chapter 5 LUNEX: Earth in the Crosshairs 69
Chapter 6 The Wheel: An Inflatable Space Station 81
Chapter 7 Venusian Empire: NASA's Mars/Venus Flyby Adventure 91
Chapter 8 Blue Gemini: Weaponizing Orbit 109
Chapter 9 Flirting with Death: The Terrifying Flight of Gemini 8 121
Chapter 10 Manned Orbiting Laboratory: How to Design, Test, and Never Fly a Space Program 129
Chapter 11 Apollo 11: Danger on the Moon 147
Chapter 12 The First Space Shuttle: Project Dyna-Soar 157
Chapter 13 Beyond the Edge of Space: The X-15B 169
Chapter 14 The Sad, Strange Tale of Soyuz 1 185
Chapter 15 The Turtlenauts 201
Chapter 16 Falling to Earth: The Dangerous Science of Reentry 211
Chapter 17 Funeral for a Viking: The End of Viking 1 219
Chapter 18 Saving Skylab: Cowboys in Space 233
Chapter 19 Near Misses: Danger Stalks the Space Shuttle 249
Chapter 20 Showdown in Space: Firearms on the Moon 263
Chapter 21 Buran: The Soviet Union's One-Flight Wonder 279
Chapter 22 Major Matt Mason: A Man for the New Space Age 291
Acknowledgments 299
Notes 301
Index 325