How to Make a Spaceship
- Author Julian Guthrie Foreword by Sir Richard Branson with Afterword by Stephen Hawking
- Narrator Robert Shapiro
- Publisher Transworld
- Run Time 16 hours and 39 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Aerospace and aviation technology, Entrepreneurship, Environmental science, engineering and technology, Inventions and inventors, Popular astronomy and space, Space science.
Titles Purchased
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Price p/Title
- £7.99
- £6.99
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Listen to a sample
What to expect
Afterword by Professor Stephen Hawking
The historic race that reawakened the promise of manned spaceflight
Alone in a spartan black cockpit, test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed toward space. He had eighty seconds to exceed the speed of sound and begin the climb to a target no civilian pilot had ever reached. He might not make it back alive. If he did, he would make history as the world's first commercial astronaut.
The spectacle defied reason, the result of a competition dreamed up by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, whose vision for a new race to space required small teams to do what only the world's largest governments had done before.
From the age of eight, when he watched Apollo 11 land on the Moon, Diamandis's singular goal was to get to space. When he realized NASA was winding down manned space flight, he set out on one of the great entrepreneurial adventure stories of our time. If the government wouldn't send him to space, he would create a private space flight industry himself.
In the 1990s, this idea was the stuff of science fiction. Undaunted, Diamandis found inspiration in the golden age of aviation. He discovered that Charles Lindbergh made his transatlantic flight to win a $25,000 prize. The flight made Lindbergh the most famous man on earth and galvanized the airline industry. Why, Diamandis thought, couldn't the same be done for space flight?
The story of the bullet-shaped SpaceShipOne, and the other teams in the hunt for a $10 million prize is an extraordinary tale of making the impossible possible. In the end, as Diamandis dreamed, the result wasn't just a victory for one team; it was the foundation for a new industry.
Critics Review
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Hugely readable … the story of how the prize was won is astonishing
Mail on Sunday -
Reads like a thriller – and reveals many secrets… one of the great entrepreneurial stories of our time
Washington Post -
If you admire those who aim really high, How to Make a Spaceship belongs on your bookshelf… a rousing anthem to the urge to explore.
Wall Street Journal -
Includes enough death-defying stunts, madcap schemes, wild coincidences, and rousing redemptive moments to fuel a dozen Hollywood blockbusters.
Wired.com -
Impressively ambitious… When the history of 21st-century space efforts is written decades or centuries from now, this book will be a valuable contemporary record of what it was like when humanity was trying to break out of its home.
San Francisco Chronicle -
This incredible book is The Right Stuff with afterburners. Intrepid designers and innovators risk their reputations. Gutsy test pilots risk their lives. Explorers push new boundaries of what so many once thought was impossible. All brought together by a real gravity-defying force, Peter Diamandis. How to Make a Spaceship is required reading for anyone who cares about space, aviation, and the future of flight.
Captain Mark Kelly, former naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut
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