Waystation to the Stars is the exclusive -- and the only authorized -- inside story of NASA astronaut Michael Foale and his time on the aging Russian space station Mir. A fascinating, hair-raising account, written by the astronaut's father.

Gives instructions for building or making theodolites, sundials, telescopes, spectroscopes, planetariums, and models of stars, and describes methods and times for observing the sun, moon, planets, stars, comets, and meteors.

Fifty years of space exploration Foreword by Arthur C Clarke In October 1957 a metallic sphere the size of a basketball bleeped its way into orbit. It was called 'Sputnik'. From this modest beginning, an epic new adventure was born. In less than the span of a human lifetime we have explored the Moon and launched robot probes to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and far beyond. Space explores the major themes of rocket exploration, past, present and future, and celebrates the first half-century of space exploration. Specially selected images recall an age when giant rockets were the last word in modernity, and silver-suited astronauts were household names. Now we are preparing for a historic return to the Moon in the coming decade, and making serious plans to explore Mars. What awaits us in the next 50 years of space exploration? Contents: From literature to launch day - Science fiction predicts rockets and space exploration The Heavens and the Earth - Experimental missiles and satellites inspire the politicians Selling the Space Age - Consumer culture absorbs the romance of rockets Red Star in Orbit - Russian triumphs and tragedies in orbit, and on earth Machine Ambassadors - Robot probes explore Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn The Way Ahead - Do we have a long-term future in space?

A lavishly illustrated study of the human experience of space exploration draws on the contributions of forty international space explorers, including John Glenn, Sally Ride, Aleksei Leonov, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, Scott Carpenter, and Valentina Tereshkova.

Covers all major topics in astronomy and space science and includes concise biographies of leading astronomers, accounts of national space programs, and descriptions of significant celestial objects and the tools astronomers use to study them

Winner of the 1988 American Institute of Physics Prize, Ferris's book offers the listener 'an exhilarating, wide-ranging journey that takes us from the shores of the Mediterranean, where the second-century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy fashioned his creaky celestial spheres, to modern-day research institutes, where theorists contemplate this and other universes bubbling out of a quantum vacuum.' (The New York Times)