Star Bound

A Beginner's Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard's Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between

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Pub Date Jan 01 2025 | Archive Date Not set

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Description

Star Bound is a book for anyone who wants to learn about the American space program but isn’t sure where to start. First and foremost, it’s a history—short, sweet, and straightforward. From rocketry pioneer Robert Goddard’s primitive flight tests in 1926 through the creation of NASA, from our first steps on the moon to construction of the International Space Station and planning a trip to Mars, readers will meet the people and projects that have put the United States at the forefront of space exploration. Along the way, they’ll learn:

• How the United States beat the Soviets to the moon
• Why astronauts float in space (Hint: It’s not for lack of gravity!)
• How fast rockets have to go to stay in orbit around Earth
• How we can “look back in time” through a space telescope

With technology evolving and humanity’s understanding of the universe expanding, we are entering an exciting period of space exploration. Authored by two veteran space writers with unique insights into the topic, Star Bound offers up the story of Americans in space with a focus on the cultural and societal contexts of the country’s most important missions rather than engineering and technical minutiae. Vibrant, positive, and humorous, Star Bound is packed with facts and stories for novice space fans. And sprinkled in with the history are lists of the greatest space songs, books, movies, and more—all designed to make space exploration accessible to even the casual reader.
Star Bound is a book for anyone who wants to learn about the American space program but isn’t sure where to start. First and foremost, it’s a history—short, sweet, and straightforward. From rocketry...

A Note From the Publisher

This is an advanced reader copy; any and all colored text is for production use only and will not remain in the finished text.

This is an advanced reader copy; any and all colored text is for production use only and will not remain in the finished text.


Advance Praise

“Two of the world’s foremost space history chroniclers have joined forces to tell the tale of how spaceflight developed and nurtured our existence over the last century or more. They fly us through the decades with their characteristic wry humor, making Star Bound both an entertaining and an informative read.”

—Francis French, coauthor of Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961–1965

“A sweeping, comprehensive, and detailed spaceflight history and primer, Star Bound is not just informative, it’s engaging and fun—less an academic text than a lively conversation with that one cool friend who’s funny, snarky, and oh-so-smart.”

—David Hitt, author of Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story

"On every page of Star Bound I learned some new details of a story I’d once heard and vaguely remembered, and here it was brought to life for me. I felt like a child in a favorite museum, standing right in front of a piece of history. I don’t think any fiction can capture our imaginations in the way the true story of space exploration does."

—Brian Dunning, Host of the Skeptoid Podcast


“Two of the world’s foremost space history chroniclers have joined forces to tell the tale of how spaceflight developed and nurtured our existence over the last century or more. They fly us through...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781496241399
PRICE $34.95 (USD)
PAGES 296

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Featured Reviews

This book is not only for space geeks, but for anybody who wants to get a wide perspective of our understanding of the final frontier. It has history, anecdotes, a little bit of science, and the basics of space exploration, from the invention of the rocket to possible options from the future. Told with humor and in an approachable prose, the authors discuss other issues, like the religious aspects, including the views that the astronauts adopted after coming back to Earth, and even the possibility of life in the universe. I really enjoyed how they use fictional examples to make a point, as well as how they include the cultural life of the times that they’re describing, including how our understanding of space has evolved along with the technology. Since we can’t venture beyond our immediate neighborhood yet, this will do.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/University of Nebraska Press.

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