Hitting the Books: NASA's Class 8 broke color barriers and glass ceilings alike

America's first astronauts from the 1960s were all pulled from the highest ranks of the nation's military. As such, NASA's first few classes tended to conform to a rather specific demographic theme — white, male, flattop haircut you could set a watch too. By the mid-70's however, the space agency had gotten with the times and opened up the spacewalking profession to more than former Air Force and Navy test pilots. In The New Guys, author Meredith Bagby follows the exploits of NASA's Astronaut class of 1978 — "Class 8," America's first women, African Americans, Asian American, and gay person to fly to space — from the team's selection through their mastering of cutting-edge technologies aboard the Space Shuttle and their history-making orbital missions. In the excerpt below, Class 8 receives a brutal introduction to the dangers that await them. Harper Collins PublishingFrom The New Guys by Meredith Bagby. Copyright © 2023 by Meredith Bagby. Reprinted courtesy of William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.Johnson Space Center, Houston. July 1978“Hey! We’ve got a fire in the cockpit!” a man screamed, then his voice cut out. Within seconds, another desperate voice cut through the static.“We’ve got a bad fire . . . !” the second man shouted in pain.“We’re burning up . . . !!!” a third howled.Then the transmission faded into nothing but static.In one of the many tiered seats in Mission Control, Ron McNair and his new classmates listened to a recording of the Apollo... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2023-02-12 15:30:30 UTC ]
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8 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Coming Out in December

December's new SFF releases bring not one but three new additions to series we love, a brand new romantasy trilogy, and more! Continue reading at Book Riot

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Book Review: ‘Critical Hits,’ edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado

In the anthology “Critical Hits,” gamers like Hanif Abdurraqib, Alexander Chee and Larissa Pham explain what the medium means to them. Continue reading at The New York Times

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Print Book Sales Fell 8% Last Week

Following a one-week, Britney Spears–led sales increase, unit sales of print books fell 8% last week compared to the week ended November 5, 2022. Sales fell in all major categories except young adult fiction. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

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Religion Book Deals: November 8, 2023

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8 New Books About Trailblazing Women

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8 Books to Read after Listening to the Podcast EMPIRE

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8 Queer Historical Fiction Books Set Around the World

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Hitting the Books: Voice-controlled AI copilots could lead to safer flights

Siri and Alexa were only the beginning. As voice recognition and speech synthesis technologies continue to mature, the days of typing on keyboards to interact with the digital world around us could be coming to an end — and sooner than many of us anticipated. Where... Continue reading at Engadget

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8 Comic Book Cover Art Collections to Please Your Eyes

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How Bookshop.org has made itself a hub for indie stores and book lovers alike

More than merely the anti-Amazon, the online book retailer and Brands That Matter honoree has built its own community of devoted readers. Literary staying power can be hard to achieve: Beach reads don’t often become Penguin Classics. The three-year-old Bookshop.org, which sells books to... Continue reading at Fast Company

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Hitting the Books: Meet Richard Arkwright, the world's first tech titan

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[ Engadget | 2023-09-11 20:50:45 UTC ]
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Hitting the Books: Meet Richard Akrwright, the world's first tech titan

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[ Engadget | 2023-09-10 14:30:56 UTC ]
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These 8 books will help soothe your climate anxiety by focusing on the little things

In a climate crisis that feels huge and hopeless, these eight books — essays, fiction, memoir and poetry on the wild — will help you focus on small things Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

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8 New Nonfiction Books Being Released in August

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8 Great Books to Read About the Relationship Between Humans and Animals

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Hitting the Books: Why AI won't be taking our cosmology jobs

The problem with studying the universe around us is that it is simply too big. The stars overhead remain too far away to interact with directly, so we are relegated to testing our theories on the formation of the galaxies based on observable data. Simulating these celestial bodies on computers... Continue reading at Engadget

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