Nasa Popular Books
Nasa Biography & Facts
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; ) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. Established in 1958, it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the U.S. space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station along with the Commercial Crew Program, and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the lunar Artemis program. NASA's science division is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System; advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorate's Heliophysics Research Program; exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft such as New Horizons and planetary rovers such as Perseverance; and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the James Webb Space Telescope, the Great Observatories and associated programs. The Launch Services Program oversees launch operations for its uncrewed launches. History Creating a civil aeronautics and space agency NASA traces its roots to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). Despite being the birthplace of aviation, by 1914 the United States recognized that it was far behind Europe in aviation capability. Determined to regain American leadership in aviation, Congress created the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1914 and established NACA in 1915 to foster aeronautical research and development. Over the next forty years, NACA would conduct aeronautical research in support of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and the civil aviation sector. After the end of World War II, NACA became interested in the possibilities of guided missiles and supersonic aircraft, developing and testing the Bell X-1 in a joint program with the U.S. Air Force. NACA's interest in space grew out of its rocketry program at the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik 1 ushered in the Space Age and kicked off the Space Race. Despite NACA's early rocketry program, the responsibility for launching the first American satellite fell to the Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, whose operational issues ensured the Army Ballistic Missile Agency would launch Explorer 1, America's first satellite, on February 1, 1958. The Eisenhower Administration decided to split the United States' military and civil spaceflight programs, which were organized together under the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency. NASA was established on July 29, 1958, with the signing of the National Aeronautics and Space Act and it began operations on October 1, 1958. As the United States' premier aeronautics agency, NACA formed the core of NASA's new structure, absorbing its 8,000 employees and three major research laboratories. NASA also proceeded to absorb the Naval Research Laboratory's Project Vanguard, the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency under Wernher von Braun. This left NASA firmly as the United States' civil space lead and the Air Force as the military space lead. First orbital and hypersonic flights Plans for human spaceflight began in the U.S. Armed Forces prior to NASA's creation. The Air Force's Man in Space Soonest project formed in 1956, coupled with the Army's Project Adam, served as the foundation for Project Mercury. NASA established the Space Task Group to manage the program, which would conduct crewed sub-orbital flights with the Army's Redstone rockets and orbital flights with the Air Force's Atlas launch vehicles. While NASA intended for its first astronauts to be civilians, President Eisenhower directed that they be selected from the military. The Mercury 7 astronauts included three Air Force pilots, three Navy aviators, and one Marine Corps pilot. On May 5, 1961 Alan Shepard became the first American to enter space, performing a suborbital spaceflight in the Freedom 7. This flight occurred less than a month after the Soviet Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, executing a full orbital spaceflight. NASA's first orbital spaceflight was conducted by John Glenn on February 20, 1962, in the Friendship 7, making three full orbits before reentering. Glenn had to fly parts of his final two orbits manually due to an autopilot malfunction. The sixth and final Mercury mission was flown by Gordon Cooper in May 1963, performing 22 orbits over 34 hours in the Faith 7. The Mercury Program was wildly recognized as a resounding success, achieving its objectives to orbit a human in space, develop tracking and control systems, and identify other issues associated with human spaceflight. While much of NASA's attention turned to space, it did not put aside its aeronautics mission. Early aeronautics research attempted to build upon the X-1's supersonic flight to build an aircraft capable of hypersonic flight. The North American X-15 was a joint NASA-U.S. Air Force program, with the hypersonic test aircraft becoming the first non-dedicated spacecraft to cross from the atmosphere to outer space. The X-15 also served as a testbed for Apollo program technologies, as well as ramjet and scramjet propulsion. Moon landing Escalations in the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union prompted President John F. Kennedy to charge NASA with landing an American on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s, and installed James E. Webb as NASA administrator to achieve this goal. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy openly declared this goal in his "Urgent National Needs" speech to the United States Congress, declaring: I believe this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. Kennedy gave his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech the next year, on September 12, 1962 at Rice University. Despite attacks on the goal of landing astronauts on the Moon from the former president Dwight Eisenhower and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, President Kennedy was able to protect NASA's growing budget, of which 50% went directly to human spaceflight and it was later estimated that, at its height, 5% of Americans worked on some aspect of the Apollo program. To manage the Apollo program, NASA required a more rigorous approach than it applied to P.... Discover the Nasa popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Nasa books.
Best Seller Nasa Books of 2024
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Spaced Out
Stuart GibbsIn this New York Times bestselling novel the moon base commander has gone missing and Dash Gibson is on the case. The second mindboggling mystery of the Moon Base Alpha series from...
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First Man
James R. HansenNow a major motion picture, this is the firstand onlydefinitive authorized account of Neil Armstrong, the man whose “one small step” changed history.When Apollo 11 touched down on ...
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Apollo 8
Jeffrey KlugerThe untold story of the historic voyage to the moon that closed out one of our darkest years with a nearly unimaginable triumphIn August 1968, NASA made a bold decision: in just si...
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One Giant Leap
Charles FishmanThe remarkable story of the trailblazers and the ordinary Americans on the front lines of the epic mission to reach the moon.President John F. Kennedy astonished the world on May 2...
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Space
James A. Michener & Steve Berry“A master storyteller . . . Michener, by any standards, is a phenomenon. Space is one of his best books.”The Wall Street JournalAlready a renowned chronicler of the epic events of ...
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Rise of the Rocket Girls
Nathalia HoltThe riveting true story of the women who launched America into space. In the 1940s and 50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quickthinking mathematicians to c...
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Moonglow
Michael ChabonNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWinner of the Sophie Brody Medal An NBCC Finalist for 2016 Award for Fiction ALA Carnegie Medal Finalist for Excellence in Fiction...
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Packing for Mars
Mary Roach“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) returns to explore the irresistibly strange universe of life without gravity in this New York Times bestseller. Space is a wor...
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Sex on the Moon
Ben MezrichFrom the bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House, this is the incredible true story of how a college student and two femal...
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Bringing Columbia Home
Michael D. Leinbach, Jonathan H. Ward, Robert Crippen & Eileen M. CollinsVoted the Best Space Book of 2018 by the Space HipstersThe dramatic inside story of the epic search and recovery operation after the Columbia space shuttle disaster. On February 1,...
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Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space
Janna LevinThe authoritative story of the headlinemaking discovery of gravitational wavesby an eminent theoretical astrophysicist and awardwinning writer.From the author of How the Universe G...
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Spaceman
Mike MassiminoNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NASA astronaut Mike Massimino shares incredible true stories from spacea rare, wonderful world where science meets the most thrilling adventure. “Mike is...
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The Last Astronaut
David WellingtonShortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020!"A terrifying tour de force." James Rollins"Readers will be riveted." Publishers Weekly (starred review)Sally Jansen was NASA's lead...
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Parallel Worlds
Michio KakuThe national bestselling author of The God Equation takes us on a thrilling journey to explore black holes and time machines, multidimensional space and the possibility that parall...
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New Power
Jeremy Heimans & Henry TimmsNOW A NATIONAL BESTSELLERThe definitive guide to spreading ideas, building movements, and leaping ahead in our chaotic, connected age. Get the book New York Times columnist David B...
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NASA and the Mars Gold Rush
Eero TarikAnother fast paced piece of 'live fiction' by Eero Tarik, published the day before NASA's announcement about Mars in September 2015. One of the world's most prolific short story wr...
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Dark Mission
Richard C. Hoagland & Mike BaraThe New York Times bestseller about the strange history of NASA and its coverups regarding its origins and extraterrestrial architecture found on the moon and Mars is even more int...
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The Fabric of the Cosmos
Brian GreeneNATIONAL BESTSELLER From one of the world’s leading physicists and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes “an astonishing ride” through the universe (Th...
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Black Holes and Baby Universes
Stephen HawkingNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Thirteen extraordinary essays shed new light on the mystery of the universeand on one of the most brilliant thinkers of our time. “[Hawking] sprinkles hi...
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Prepared for Rage
Dana StabenowFollowing A Deeper Sleep, her most successful Kate Shugak novel to date, the Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling thriller writer Dana Stabenow delivers a nailbiting, ...
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Rocket Men
Robert KursonNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The riveting inside story of three heroic astronauts who took on the challenge of mankind’s historic first mission to the Moon, from the bestselling...
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UFOs
Leslie KeanNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Impeccably researched, this riveting journalistic investigation separates fact from fiction, and documents the unexplained mysteries ofand governmen...
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Neil Armstrong
Jay BarbreeMuch has been written about Neil Armstrong, America's modern hero and history's most famous space traveler. Yet shy of fame and never one to steal the spotlight Armstrong was alway...
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The Field
Lynne McTaggart“A big, bold, brilliantly crafted pageturner with HUGE ideas that challenge every last view about how the world works. This is both a primer to understand the law of attraction and...
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The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Jacqueline KellyIn this witty historical fiction middle grade novel set at the turn of the century, an 11yearold girl explores the natural world, learns about science and animals, and grows up. A ...
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Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING RYAN GOSLING AND DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER LORD AND PHIL MILLER From the author of The Martian, a lone a...
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Code to Zero
Ken FollettIn this classic Cold War thriller, #1 New York Times bestselling author Ken Follett puts his own electrifying twist on the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. As the ...
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Endurance
Scott KellyNATIONAL BEST SELLERA stunning, personal memoir from the astronaut and modernday hero who spent a recordbreaking year aboard the International Space Stationa message of hope for th...
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Trader of Secrets
Steve Martini“Steve Martini ranks among the top authors of legal thrillers.”Pittsburgh PostGazette“You like Law & Order? Or even a John Grisham novel? Well, Steve Martini is one of the best...
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Wonders of the Universe
Brian Cox & Andrew Cohen“Cox brings a magical enchantment to this lifechanging book. . . . I swear that you will never be the same again after you turn the last page of this unique and...
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Artemis
Andy WeirThe bestselling author of The Martian returns with an irresistible new nearfuture thrillera heist story set on the moon.Jasmine Bashara never signed up to be a hero. She just wante...
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Deception Point
Dan BrownHeralded for masterfully intermingling science, history, and politics in his critically acclaimed thrillers The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, New York Times bestselling au...
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The Field Updated Ed
Lynne McTaggart“A big, bold, brilliantly crafted pageturner with HUGE ideas that challenge every last view about how the world works. This is both a primer to understand the law of attraction and...
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Hidden Figures
Margot Lee ShetterlyThe #1 New York Times bestsellerThe phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space...
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Liftoff
Eric Berger“A colorful pageturner.” Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review“As important a book on space as has ever been written.” Homer Hickam, #1 New York Times bes...
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Gravity
Tess GerritsenIn this propulsive, “nonstop read” (USA TODAY) from the New York Times bestselling author of The Shape of Night, a NASA doctor is in a deadly race against time to destroy a lethal ...
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Failure Is Not an Option
Gene KranzThis New York Times bestselling memoir of a veteran NASA flight director tells riveting stories from the early days of the Mercury program through Apollo 11 (the moon landing) and ...
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The Last Man on the Moon
Eugene Cernan & Donald A. DavisThe basis of the 2014 awardwinning featurelength documentary! A revealing and dramatic look at the inside of the American Space Program from one of its pioneers.Eugene Cernan was a...
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Challenger
Adam HigginbothamFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minutebyminute story of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating indepth re...
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Shine Shine Shine
Lydia NetzerA New York Times Notable Book!"Over the moon with a metaphysical spin. Hearttugging…it is struggling to understand the physical realities of life and the nature of what makes us h...