Description
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2020 Space Hipsters Prize for Best Book in Astronomy, Space Exploration, or Space HistoryCome Fly with Usis the story of an elite group of space travelers who flew as members of many space shuttle crews from pre-
Challenger days to
Columbia in 2003. Not part of the regular NASA astronaut corps, these professionals known as “payload specialists” came from a wide variety of backgrounds and were chosen for an equally wide variety of scientific, political, and national security reasons. Melvin Croft and John Youskauskas focus on this special fraternity of spacefarers and their individual reflections on living and working in space. Relatively unknown to the public and often flying only single missions, these payload specialists give the reader an unusual perspective on the experience of human spaceflight. The authors also bring to light NASA’s struggle to integrate the wide-ranging personalities and professions of these
