Search results for ""Author Jeffrey Kluger""

In August 1968, NASA made a bold decision: in just sixteen weeks, the United States would launch humankind’s first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another. Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken. But when Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were summoned to a secret meeting and told of the dangerous mission, they instantly signed on. Written with all the colour and verve of the best narrative non-fiction, Apollo 8 takes us from Mission Control to the astronaut’s homes, from the test labs to the launch pad. Then, on Christmas Eve, a nation that has suffered a horrendous year of assassinations and war is heartened by an inspiring message from the trio of astronauts in lunar orbit. And when the mission is over—after the first view of the far side of the moon, the first earth-rise, and the first re-entry through the earth’s atmosphere following a flight to deep space—the impossible dream of walking on the moon suddenly seems within reach.

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Why does kicking the TV work? What can the US military learn from the lowly bacterium? Why are the instruction manuals for cell phones incomprehensible? How does a spark of a single virus trigger an epidemic that claims millions? In recent years, cutting-edge studies in fields such as economics, genetics, stock-market analysis and child development have hit on a startling new theory - 'simplexity'. To put it simply, simple things can be more complicated than they seem, and complex things more simple. The evidence is before our eyes: in your elaborate network of household plumbing actually run on a very basic mechanism, or the crystal paperweight on your desk, spectacular in its complexity. As simplexity moves from the research lab into popular consciousness it will challenge our models for modern living. You'll never unknowingly whack the TV again and you'll understand just how much it means to smile at your child. Popular science journalist Jeffrey Kluger adeptly translates cutting-edge theory into a high-octane history of everything, which will have you rethinking the rules of business and pleasure. From the micro to the macro, Simplexity is a startling reassessment of the building blocks of life and how they affect us all.

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Walli Beckwith is a model astronaut. So when she refuses to leave her post at the international space station following an accident that forces her fellow astronauts to evacuate, her American and Russian colleagues are mystified. But Walli is stuck in a race against time to save both a precious part of the world and the life of her niece, Ha health care provider for indigenous people in the Amazon jungle who are being burnt out of their homes by paramilitary forces, supported by the Brazilian President. Will the US military intervene? Walli will go to any means necessary.

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April 13, 1970. Astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert are hurtling towards the moon in the Apollo 13 spacecraft, when an explosion rocks the ship. The cockpit grows dim, the air grows thin, and the instrument lights wink out. Moments later, the astronauts are forced to abandon the main ship for the tiny lunar module, designed to keep two men alive for just two days. But there are three men aboard and they are four days from home. As the action shifts from the disabled ship to the frantic engineers at Mission Control to Lovell's anxious family, APOLLO 13 brilliantly recreates the harrowing, heroic mission in all its drama and glory.This gripping story of human endurance is the basis for Ron Howard's classic film starring Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon.

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