The Complete Idiot's Guide to NASA (Paperback)

From Apollo 13, to black holes, to satellites, space shuttles, asteroids, and solar systems, The Complete Idiot's Guide "RM" to NASA will explore the past, present, and future of space travel.

-- There are over 250,000 Web sites that explore various aspects of NASA and astronomy. NASA's official Web site, while comprehensive, is difficult to navigate; this book condenses the massive amount of information into an accessible and readable format.

-- With the construction of the International Space Station over the next few years, NASA will be a major media presence.

-- Written by a NASA astronaut.

Coverage includes: the history of NASA, from its origins in the 1950s as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Projects Mercury and Gemini; the history and timeline, triumphs and tragedies of the famed Apollo missions, including the historic Apollo 11, which put the first men on the Moon in 1969; NASA's contributions to our everyday life, most notably on robotics and the creation of cutting-edge research on aerodynamics and chapters on important NASA discoveries: the Pioneer and Voyager Spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope, communications satellites such as the Echo, Telstar, and Syncom.