Into the Black
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Into the Black
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Narrated by:
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Eric Meyers
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By:
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Rowland White
About this listen
On 12th April 1981 a revolutionary new spacecraft blasted off from Florida on her maiden flight. NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia was the most advanced flying machine ever built - the high watermark of post-war aviation development. A direct descendant of the record-breaking X-planes the likes of which Chuck Yeager had tested in the skies over the Mojave Desert, Columbia was a winged rocket plane, the size of an airliner, capable of flying to space and back before being made ready to fly again. She was the world's first real spaceship.
The Shuttle's Commander, moonwalker John Young, was already a veteran of five spaceflights. Alongside him, Pilot Bob Crippen was making his first, but Crip, taken in by the space agency after the cancellation of a top secret military space station programme in 1969, had worked on the Shuttle's development for a decade. Never before had a crew been so well prepared for their mission.
Yet less than an hour after Young and Crippen's spectacular departure from the Cape it was clear that all was not well. Tiles designed to protect Columbia from the blowtorch burn of re-entry were missing from the heatshield. If the damage to their ship was too great the astronauts would be unable to return safely to earth. But neither they nor mission control possessed any way of knowing.
Instead, NASA turned to the National Reconnaissance Office, a spy agency hidden deep inside the Pentagon whose very existence was classified.
Into the Black is a thrilling race against time; a gripping high stakes cold-war story, and a celebration of a beyond the state-of-the-art machine that, hailed as one of the seven new wonders of the world, rekindled our passion for spaceflight.
With a foreword by Astronaut Richard Truly.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2016 Rowland White (P)2016 Random House AudioBooksListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
"Brilliantly revealed, Into the Black is the finely tuned true story of the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Rowland White has magnificently laid bare the unknown dangers and unseen hazards of that first mission.... Once read, not forgotten." (Clive Cussler)
What listeners say about Into the Black
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mr. S. Hampton
- 13-10-21
Persistently Intriguing Details
Throughout the story human, technical and political themes present in an understandable yet intriguing way.
Narration is clear and at good pace.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jamie R
- 15-12-22
Very in-depth
Amazing story with so much background and foreground back-story as well as the Shuttle itself. Be prepared to memorise loads of TLAs (three letter abbreviations)!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dave Cassim
- 01-04-20
Outstanding!
Fantastic story! I can hardly believe it actually happened, cudos to all involved. The author and narrator also did an awesome job, they truly made history come alive!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 05-09-16
Great book for anyone interested in Space flight
A interesting listen that goes into detail of the orbiters challenges and accomplishments.
It goes into great detail but is friendly to none space buffs.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Woodsman
- 20-10-21
Superb
This is a fantastic audio book! The level of detail and historic accuracy is incredibly well researched, styled and crafted into an engaging and dramatic account of the design, development and entry into service of these remarkable machines. The focus on Columbia, that first built Orbiter and the testing of her every system is delivered with great artistry and care by Eric Meyers, who brilliantly brings to life the entire range of characters involved in her dramatic story. Rowland White is an incredibly talented writer and his passion and enthusiasm for his subjects always leaps into the reader or listener making even complex technical detail so easy to understand and connect with. This is such an exciting story and fitting tribute to all those who worked on and those who ultimately gave their lives to, the Shuttle Programme. If you remember these flights, you will love this book. If you missed them because you were not born then, but want to know about these flights through first hand accounts, you will love this book. For anyone else curious and who loves heroism and adventure and an edge of the seat ride into orbit and back, you will love this book!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- mrfids
- 07-08-20
Great overview of the early Shuttle History
Really enjoyed listening to this and learned a lot about the early history of the shuttle. Personally would have liked more in depth details of the engineering, but what was there was informative. Noted a couple of errors; it states Jack Kennedy delivered the famous 'I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal' speech, not JFK. It also states Armstrong flew the ship 'Columbia' to the moon, not 'Eagle'.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Iain K.
- 04-05-20
Loved it!!!!
For those of us of a certain age who were kids during the Apollo era... this is a wonderful account of NASAs transition into the Space Shuttle era. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this book and didn't want it to end. Fabulous!!!
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mr Lee Rudd
- 02-07-16
Well researched history
The authors previous books have concentrated on quite specific moments on British military history, so I was surprised to see his latest book about the history leading up to the first flight of the space shuttle. That said, a highly readable book about the history, the politics and the people involved.
Well researched, interesting, and revealing - at least to me - new facts about how deep the military's involvement was in the Shuttle programme.
American narrator, works quite well in the telling of the story.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- PJ
- 29-04-23
Magnificent story
Huge congratulations to the author and narrator for the way they’ve brought the shuttle story to life. It’s a detailed account but it’s well-paced. Very much a human story, featuring the key figures, with just the right amount of technical information, which is clearly explained. I enjoyed it a lot.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Derrick
- 12-05-16
Boys' Own adventure
Rowland White has written three stories of cold war adventures before this, all of which have been very British affairs. This one is very much a US story. Nonetheless it carries on the tradition of telling historical stories which are more or less already known. The value that he brings is in the journey; he shares the unknown background about these otherwise well-known stories. This is no exception. For a boy (this is a boy's story) born in the '60s with a romantic memory of the later Apollo missions, this is full of fun and joy. Who else remembers badgering their mother to buy cocktail sticks so they could build the Lunar Rover cut out of the back of a Corn Flakes packet? There is a big chunk of this book that tells the "Right Stuff" story of the early NASA and DoD space effort, but avoids the dwelling upon the events that are perhaps known well enough from other sources.
The reality is that the ultimate crunch of this story is rather an anticlimax: the shuttle lands safely, if you did not know. But the story of pioneering adventure is worth the telling. OK, the gap between the end of Apollo and the beginning of the shuttle missions is a little tedious, but this is a great story.
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2 people found this helpful