Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight - Softcover

Dean, Margaret Lazarus

Softcover

ISBN 10: 155597709X ISBN 13: 9781555977092

Publisher: Graywolf Press, 2015

Synopsis

Winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize, a breathtaking elegy to the waning days of human spaceflight as we have known it

In the 1960s, humans took their first steps away from Earth, and for a time our possibilities in space seemed endless. But in a time of austerity and in the wake of high-profile disasters like Challenger, that dream has ended. In early 2011, Margaret Lazarus Dean traveled to Cape Canaveral for NASA's last three space shuttle launches in order to bear witness to the end of an era. With Dean as our guide to Florida's Space Coast and to the history of NASA, Leaving Orbit takes the measure of what American spaceflight has achieved while reckoning with its earlier witnesses, such as Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe, and Oriana Fallaci. Along the way, Dean meets NASA workers, astronauts, and space fans, gathering possible answers to the question: What does it mean that a spacefaring nation won't be going to space anymore?

About this title

About the Author

Margaret Lazarus Dean is the author of The Time It Takes to Fall. She is a recipient of fellowships from the NEA and the Tennessee Arts Commission and is an associate professor of English at the University of Tennessee. She lives in Knoxville.

Edition details

• Publisher: Graywolf Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 155597709X
• ISBN 13: 9781555977092
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240