Outer Space - Observation & Exploration, Astronautical Engineering - Space Stations & Satellites, Astronautical Engineering - General & Miscellaneous, Airships & Spacecraft, Space program - Soviet Union - History, Science & Technology Policy, 20th Century
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Overview
In Dragonfly, Bryan Burrough tells for the first time the incredible true story of how a joint Russian-American crew narrowly survived almost every trauma an astronaut could imagine: fire, power blackouts, chemical leaks, docking failures, nail-biting spacewalks, and constant mechanical breakdowns, all climaxing in a dramatic mid-space collision that left everyone on board scrambling for their lives. Burrough portrays an American space program in which many astronauts refuse to raise safety concerns for fear they will be frozen out of future missions. It offers an unprecedented look inside the rattletrap Russian space program, where the desperate thirst for hard currency leads to safety shortcuts and exhausted, puppetlike cosmonauts endure truly inhuman pressures from their unfeeling, all-powerful masters on the ground.Editorials
Andrew Chaikin
...[A] gripping yarn....The most fascinating story lies in the clash of cultures for which the collision is a metaphor....A member of an independent team assigned to investigate Mir's safey tells Burrough that the real problems on the station had to do with people, not machines.— The New York Times Book Review
New Yorker
Frightening, informative and silkily readable.Ted Rose
...Burrough deserves kudos for finding a fresh,human space story chock full of drama....[He] transforms the events on Mir into a cautionary tale about the perils of multinational space exploration.— Brill's Content
Will Lee
[A] meticulous account....provides a close look at the ground-level jockeying and verbal jousting...— Entertainment Weekly
Book Details
Published
December 1, 1998
Publisher
HarperCollins Publishers
Pages
544
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780887307836