The Science Factory Spring 2021 Rights List

Page 30

Spring Rights List 2021

RECENTLY PUBLISHED

LIFTOFF Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days that Launched SpaceX ERIC BERGER Liftoff reads like something out of the golden age of Science Fiction but this isn't a novel by Robert Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke. This is the true, astounding story of the men and women who spun those sci-fi dreams into reality. This is as important a book on space as has ever been written and it's a riveting page-turner, too! – Homer Hickam, #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of ROCKET BOYS

The little-known story of SpaceX’s first four rocket launches, and the engineers, mathematicians and visionaries that gave everything they had to usher in a new age of space exploration. From 2006 to 2008, on a remote atoll in the Pacific, the private US rocketry company SpaceX struggled to get its homemade single-engine rocket, the Falcon 1, into orbit. The first rocket exploded about 30 seconds into its flight. The second reached space… for all of eight minutes, when its engine sputtered out. The third was looking more promising until its just-separated first stage actually caught up with the second stage, triggering an explosive collision at the edge of space. With one rocket remaining, SpaceX’s young team knew its fate was tied to the fourth attempt. ‘If we had not reached orbit on that attempt, SpaceX would not exist’, the company’s founder Elon Musk himself acknowledged in a statement in 2018. (Spoiler alert: the fourth rocket operated like a dream, of course, and SpaceX has spent the past 10 years building a leading position in humanity’s space exploration efforts.) Yet owing to the reclusive nature of SpaceX, the full story of these early years, far from the gleaming headquarters and high-profile successes of today, is largely unknown. In LIFTOFF, Eric Berger draws on his unprecedented access to SpaceX to reveal the full narrative of this foundational generation, profiling the pioneering team that grew SpaceX from nothing, survived three straight failures and lifted SpaceX from mockery to ascendancy in space exploration. LIFTOFF is the story, not of Elon Musk, but of the people who gave up safe jobs elsewhere to build the future of space exploration. ERIC BERGER has been a reporter and editor in Houston for more than two decades. With a background in astronomy and a master’s degree in journalism, he has written mostly about science and, more recently, spaceflight. After a long career at the Houston Chronicle, he joined Ars Technica in 2015 as the website’s senior space editor, covering SpaceX, NASA and everything beyond. For his reporting since then, he won the 2015 NewSpace Journalism award from the Space Frontier Foundation and a 2015 Space Pioneer award from the National Space Society. A certified meteorologist, he also maintains a widely read weather forecasting website for the greater Houston area, Space City Weather. He was a Pulitzer prize finalist for his coverage of Hurricane Ike at the Houston Chronicle in 2008. Agent: Jeff Shreve Publisher: Wiliam Morrow (HarperCollins US)/William Collins (HarperCollins UK) Publication: 2 March 2021 Length: 288 pages All rights available excluding World English Language (Morrow), China (Guomai Culture and Media), Japan (Newton), Korea (Third Moon Publishing), Russia (Eksmo), Turkey (Turkuvaz)

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by Keith MartinCryptography

2min
page 37

by Massimo PigliucciA Field Guide to a Happy Life How to Make a Vaccine by John Rhodes 38

5min
pages 39-46

by Naohiro MatsumuraShikake

2min
page 38

RECENT WORLD RIGHTS DEALS

1min
page 47

by Emily LevesqueThe Last Stargazers

2min
page 36

by Kate GreeneOnce Upon a Time I Lived On Mars

2min
page 33

by Mark HumphriesThe Spike

5min
pages 34-35

by Roland EnnosThe Age of Wood

3min
page 31

by Frank FarandaThe Fear Paradox

2min
page 32

by Eric BergerLiftoff

2min
page 30

by Gillian ‘Gus’ AndrewsKeep Calm and Log On

2min
page 29

by Leah ZaniStrike Patterns

2min
page 28

by Roberto TrottaA World Without Stars

2min
page 27

by Govert SchillingThe Elephant in the Universe

5min
pages 25-26

by Angela SainiThe Patriarchs

2min
page 24

by Vann R. Newkirk IIChildren of the Flood

1min
page 21

by Alison LiWondrous Transformations

2min
page 20

by Regan PenalunaHow to Think Like a Woman

2min
page 22

by Massimo PigliucciUntitled Moral Biography of Socrates and Alcibiades

0
page 23

by Ian KeableThe Century of Deception

2min
page 19

by Fiona FoxHeadline Science

7min
pages 16-18

by Skye C. ClearyHow To Be Authentic

2min
page 14

by Rachel FeltmanSex

2min
page 15

by Gregory ForthBetween Ape and Human

7min
pages 6-8

by Elizabeth KeatingHow to Interview Your Family

1min
page 9

by Aynne KokasTrafficking Data

2min
page 10

by Adam BeckerUntitled on Silicon Valley

4min
pages 12-13

by Azeem AzharExponential

2min
page 11

by Athena AktipisHijacked

7min
pages 3-5
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