Back to the Moon Lib/E

THE SECOND TIME AROUND--IS HARDER . . . Decades after the last footprints were left on the Moon, the US was preparing to return to the Lunar surface in a new class of rockets, when the mission suddenly became much more urgent. It would have to be a rescue mission. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world China had sent its own Lunar expedition. A manned expedition. Until a distress call was received, no human outside of China even knew that the mission was manned--or that their ship had crash-landed and couldn't take off again. Time was running out, and if the four Chinese astronauts were to be rescued, the American lunar mission would have to launch immediately, with only a skeleton crew. Once the heroic US astronauts were underway the army of engineers and scientists back home had the daunting task of deciding what equipment could be left on the Moon to permit the Lunar lander vehicle vehicle to lift safely from the Moon with the two US astronauts and the four stranded Chinese taikonauts! Could the US mount such a mission successfully--and would thousands of years of instilled honor "allow" the Chinese astronauts to accept a rescue?

About the Author :
Travis S. Taylor is the cocreator and star of the National Geographic Channel's hit series Rocket City Rednecks. Taylor is a physicist who has worked on various programs for the Department of Defense and NASA for the past twenty years. His expertise includes advanced propulsion concepts, very large space telescopes, space based beamed energy systems, future combat technologies, and next generation space launch concepts. His books include the Tau Ceti Agenda series and the Warp Speed series. Les Johnson is a NASA physicist and author. By day, he serves as the senior technical assistant for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In the early 2000s, he was NASA's manager for interstellar propulsion research and later managed the In-Space Propulsion Technology Project. He was technical consultant for the movie Lost in Space and has appeared on the Discovery Channel series Physics of the Impossible in the "How to Build a Starship" episode. He has also appeared in three episodes of the Science Channel series Exodus Earth. He is the author of Rescue Mode, coauthored with Ben Bova, as well as Back to the Moon and On to the Asteroid, both coauthored with Travis S. Taylor. He is coeditor of the science/science fiction collection Going Interstellar. You know you're narrating a character right when your children grab your arm and say, "Daddy . . . read the bad guy normal, you're scaring us with the voice." Aside from reading villains in storybooks really well, Derek Shoales has worked on corporate, eLearning, and commercial voice-over projects, been a graphic/web designer and an inventory market mentor, sung bass to baritone in choirs, and played the guitar, electric violin, and Clare whistle.