Описание: How a historic race gave birth to private space flight 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. There was a chance he would not come back alive. If he did, he would make history as the world s first commercial astronaut. The spectacle defied reason, the result of an improbable contest dreamed up by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, whose vision for a new race to space requiring small teams to do what only the world s largest governments had done before had been dismissed as fantastical. The tale begins in Mount Vernon, N.Y. Diamandis was the son of hard working Greek immigrants who wanted their science prodigy to do the family proud and become a doctor. Peter was a dutiful son, but from the time he was eight years old, staying up late to watch Apollo 11 land on the moon, he had one goal: getting to space. He started a national student space club while at MIT. He launched a rocket company in Houston while getting a medical degree from Harvard - a degree he pursued to improve his chances of becoming an astronaut. But when he realized NASA was winding down manned space flight, Diamandis 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 spaceflight industry and get there himself. In the 1990s, the idea of private space flight was the stuff of science fiction. The undaunted Diamandis found inspiration in an unlikely place: the first golden age of aviation. Reading Charles Lindbergh s"The Spirit of St. Louis," Diamandis was stunned that the aviator had attempted the first transatlantic flight from New York to Paris to win a $25,000 prize. The historic flight galvanized the commercial airline industry. Why, Diamandis thought, couldn t a similar contest be held for space flight? In 1996, standing under the arch of St. Louis the city where Lindbergh found his backers - Diamandis announced the $10 million Xprize. To win, a privately funded team would have to build and fly a manned rocket into space twice in two weeks. The deadline: December 31, 2004. On a brilliant morning in the Mojave Desert, with little time to spare, a bullet-shaped rocket called SpaceShipOne was launched. The story of SS1, and other scrappy teams in the hunt all spurred by Diamandis as he struggled to keep the prize afloat became a testament to the American spirit of ingenuity and oversized dreams. The winning of the Xprize marked the end of the government s monopoly over space. Julian Guthrie, author of "The Billionaire and The Mechanic," an acclaimed bestselling account of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison s pursuit of the America s Cup, thought she knew about obsessive pursuits, but the XPrize race spurred another level of drama, sacrifice, and technical wizardry. With Diamandis cooperation, Guthrie had access to all of the players from Richard Branson and John Carmack to Burt Rutan and has melded their stories into a spellbinding narrative, a combination of"Rocket Boys "and"The New New Thing." In the end, as Diamandis dreamed, the result wasn t just a victory for one team; it was the foundation for a new industry, including SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and others. Today, SpaceShipOne hangs in the Smithsonian s Air and Space Museum, above the Apollo 11 capsule and next to Lindbergh s Spirit of St. Louis plane."
Автор: Guthrie-Lewis Elvie Название: Warm Regards Inspiration 365 ISBN: 1545614822 ISBN-13(EAN): 9781545614822 Издательство: Неизвестно Цена: 3033.00 р. Наличие на складе: Есть у поставщика Поставка под заказ.
Описание: This Devotional - Warm Regards, is full of her life stories. As her friends, we recognize ourselves in some of her writing; and in what she writes, we are further blessed by the words she has chosen to tell our stories. Our stories: our successes, and even some of our sorrows, are being used to glorify our Lord and Savior. What a blessing. What a joy. What an honor. Each meditative story concludes with Words of Love. As you read, you can imagine what Jesus is trying to say to each of us, what He is trying to teach us in His loving, contemplative way. There is no judgment, just stories to which we can each relate; stories that will warm our hearts; stories that will nurture us, and encourage us, as we grow in our faith. Elvie Guthrie-Lewis was born to Maurice and Ernestine Guthrie, on the beautiful Island of Jamaica, in the West Indies. She is the last of four children. At an early age, Elvie dreamed of becoming a teacher and a writer. She was an avid reader as a child, and even had her bungalow designed for writing, like some writers she had read about. She achieved her first goal to become a teacher, when she graduated from Shortwood Teachers' College in 1970. Elvie taught at the high school level for eight and a half years and spent two and a half years with the Jamaican Movement for the Advancement of Literacy (JAMAL) as a teacher trainer. Elvie immigrated to the United States in 1982 to advance her studies, and earned BS Degrees in Nutrition and Dietetics, and Institution Management. She went on to earn a MS Degree in Education; all from Alcorn State University. Elvie is a Registered Dietitian, a Certified Public Manager, an Alumni of the South Central Public Health Leadership Institute (Tulane University), and the Rotary Leadership Academy. She is married to Felton Lewis of New Orleans, and they live in Mississippi.
