The Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy of 1986 and the rash of launch failures that followed it left the U.S. space program in a quagmire of uncertainty and recrimination. Although the soul-searching and reorganization convulsions seem to have bottomed out finally, the United States has a long rocky road to negotiate before it can regain its leading role in space exploration and development. These books offer three authors’ viewpoints on traversing that road, drawing on the past and the present as a guide to what will come next.
Hans Mark was an inside observer and frequent key player in the decision-making process that led to the present situation and created the environment in which the future will develop. He was a scientist who served as director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, secretary of the Air Force and deputy administrator of NASA. In The Space Station he leads the reader from the ...
