NASA: From the Moon to Mars - The Complete Illustrated History

by Michael H. Gorn, Buzz Aldrin (Foreword)

No country has made a greater contribution to the exploration of space than the United States, and this critically acclaimed book charts the complete history of the country’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) from its earliest days to the present. Award-winning historian Michael H. Gorn covers every US space mission ever undertaken, and in this fully revised edition, with a new foreword by Buzz Aldrin, brings the story up to date at a time when NASA finds itself experiencing dramatic change. Gorn relates the termination of the Shuttle programme, President Obama’s initiative to launch a new heavy lift rocket, and the development of the Mars Science Laboratory, which successfully landed the rover Curiosity on the surface of the planet in 2012. He also reveals how the personalities involved, including astronauts, pilots, scientists, engineers and America’s presidents, have shaped the course of space exploration as much as technological advances. Authoritative yet accessible, and packed with 500 images, this is the only book on NASA you’ll ever need.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2013

About the author

Hello, I’m Michael Gorn, and I’m a native Californian living in the Los Angeles area with my wife, Christine. My writing specialty is the history of aeronautics and spaceflight, which I’ve been pursuing for nearly 40 years.

I’ve published a number of books in the field. My latest, due out in September 2018, is Spacecraft: 100 Iconic Rockets, Shuttles, and Satellites that Put Us in Space (Quarto Publishing Group, 2018).

Spacecraft is timed to commemorate two of the most historic events of the space age: the 60th anniversary of the founding of NASA in 2018, and in 2019, the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11—the first landing by human beings on the Moon. Illustrated with over 300 beautiful, original artworks by my collaborator Giuseppe de Chiara of Naples, Italy, Spacecraft is an oversize, lavishly illustrated book that depicts the world’s great space vehicles, from Sputnik 1 in 1958 to the massive James Webb Space Telescope in 2020. I contributed concise and, I hope, enlightening historical profiles that accompany the images.

Some of my previous books include NASA: The Complete Illustrated History (Merrell Publishers, 2005, revised 2008) and Expanding the Envelope: Flight Research at NACA and NASA (The University Press of Kentucky, 2001). I also wrote The Universal Man: Theodore von Karman’s Life in Aeronautics (Smithsonian, 1992), Superstructures in Space: From Satellites to Space Stations, A Guide to What’s Out There (Merrell Publishers, 2008), and I was a contributing author for Spyplanes: The Illustrated Guide to Manned Reconnaissance and Surveillance Aircraft from World War I to Today (Quarto Publishing Group, 2016).

I enjoyed a long and fruitful career as a historian in the U.S. civil service. I served for nearly thirty years with the Air Force, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, becoming the Chief Historian of the NASA Dryden (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center, at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

I’ve been fortunate to receive several awards for my work, most notably the Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award for Expanding the Envelope, presented by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. I also received the Alfred V. Verville Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum and was selected for the Fellowship in Aerospace History by the American Historical Association.

I have a strong attachment to Southern California, where I grew up (in the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of L.A.) and attended the University of Southern California, where I earned a doctorate in history. Aside from the pleasures of writing about aeronautics and spaceflight, I’ve had a lifelong passion for morning walks, amateur (very amateur!) gardening, and for wood carving birds and other wildlife.