Space Mission

Spark is everything and it blooms inside the bodies of Tau City’s young women. Once a decade, in exchange for enough power to keep the city modern and comfortable, a Spark Maiden must be sacrificed to their mysterious tower god in a ritual called The Extraction. Ten Maidens are Chosen, but only one enters the tower as a sacrifice, never to be seen again. The nine leftovers are elevated to celebrity status and spend the next decade living in the luxurious Maiden Tower, wearing couture gala gowns, and partying with the city’s most interesting and beautiful people.

The story of the men and women who drove the Voyager spacecraft mission, told by a scientist who was there from the beginning. The Voyager spacecraft are our farthest-flung emissaries--11.3 billion miles away from the crew who built and still operate them decades after their launch.

When scientists discovered the first ocean beyond Earth, they had two big questions: “Is it habitable?” and “How do we get there?” To answer the first, they had to answer the second, and so began a vivacious team’s twenty-year odyssey to mount a mission to Europa, the ocean moon of Jupiter. Standing in their way: NASA, the White House, Congress, rivals in academia, and even Jupiter itself. Written with verve, humor, and uncanny empathy, The Mission is an exuberant masterclass in how a few determined cogs can change an entire machine.

The hunt for captive humans still held in Eyndar Empire space has hit a wall. Captain Jessie Ramsey's assault on Outpost 71 resulted in the liberation of hundreds but little in the way of leads. But what if dark magic could find more? Wouldn't the benefit outweigh the harm? And what if that dark magic was chronomancy? And what if that chronomancy was wielded by the galaxy's least responsible wizard, Eric Ramsey? Still willing to give it a try? Still worth the risk?

Fresh off an inglorious defeat, the starship Arete has been thwarted in its noble mission. Unable to move on and find some other way to use the awesome technology at her disposal, Captain Jessie Ramsey seeks payback. The unidentified interloper of a starship may have won the battle, but she's determined to make this rivalry a war...and win it.

Carl Ramsey is a dead man. Or he will be soon. Captured by the Eyndar Empire, his old Third War service record becomes a list of charges. Actions that earned him commendations and acclaim from his own side resulted in thousands of deaths to his eyndar foes, and they plan to make a public celebration out of his executions. Plural. Thanks to medical science, they have Six Deaths lined up. With a calendar of events available via the omni, the Arete crew has a very literal deadline to work with formulating a rescue plan.

On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than three billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long-mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond.

Comedy doesn't pay. Some might claim that's the wrong cliché, but Chuck Ramsey knows the truth of it all too well. That's why he resorts to crime to pay the bills. His latest scheme isn't to pick up odd, questionably legal jobs near his gigs; this time he's found the perfect opportunity, and he's willing to buy a gig to be in the right place at the right time. All he has to do is get a certain wizard to play his part without knowing it.

This is the dramatic and inspirational first-person story of theoretical physicist Dr. Ronald Mallett, who recently discovered the basic equations for a working time machine that he believes can be used as a transport vehicle to the past. Combining elements of Rocket Boys and Elegant Universe, Time Traveler follows Mallett's discovery of Einstein's work on space-time, his study of Godel's work on a solution of Einstein's equation that might allow for time travel.

Since the beginning of human history Mars has been an alluring dream - the stuff of legends, gods, and mystery. The planet most like ours, it has still been thought impossible to reach, let alone explore and inhabit. Now with the advent of a revolutionary new plan, all this has changed. Leading space exploration authority Robert Zubrin has crafted a daring new blueprint, Mars Direct, presented here with engaging anecdotes. The Case for Mars is not a vision for the far future or one that will cost us impossible billions.

Are we alone in the universe? It's a fundamental question for Earth-dwelling humankind. Are there other worlds like ours, out there somewhere? In Hidden in the Heavens, Jason Steffen, a former scientist on NASA's Kepler mission, describes how that mission searched for planets orbiting Sun-like stars—especially Earth-like planets circulating in Earth-like orbits.

The Apollo space program is the most famous and celebrated in American history, but the first successful landing of men on the moon during Apollo 11 had complicated roots dating back over a decade, and it also involved one of NASA’s most infamous tragedies.

Legendary "space statesman" Buzz Aldrin speaks out as a vital advocate for the continuing quest to push the boundaries of the universe as we know it. As a pioneering astronaut who set foot on the moon during mankind’s first landing with Apollo 11 - and an aerospace engineer who designed an orbital rendezvous technique critical to future planetary landings - Aldrin has a vision, and in Mission to Mars he plots out the path he proposes, one that will take humans to Mars by 2035.

There are so many amazing, daring, and exciting missions to outer space that have succeeded. But for every success, there are mistakes, surprises, and flat-out failures that happen along the way. In this collection, best-selling author and award-winning journalist Jeffrey Kluger recounts 12 such disasters, telling the stories of the astronauts and the cosmonauts, the trials and the errors, the missions and the misses.

Chuck Ramsey is a traveling comedian trying to turn a planetside gig on Earth into a cash cow. Of course, the cost of living on Earth is astronomical. He needs to get rich quick - or at least come out ahead - and head for cheaper pastures. Enter Mordecai The Brown. Once the golden boy of the Convocation, Guardian of the Plundered Tomes and the Convocation's number one hunter of dark wizards, "Mort" has found himself on the wrong end of an internal investigation.

Follow the continuing adventure of the Lyssa and the Sykes family while the Psion AIs set their sights on Vesta.

Earth is rising in the House of Voltar.... And there’ll be hell to pay! That’s right. The invasion is on...and it’s coming soon to a galaxy near you. The action couldn’t be hotter, and the plot couldn’t be more diabolical. Earth is coming to Voltar - and the Voltarians won’t know what hit them. Murder, blackmail, drugs, psychoanalysis, PR firms, sex-crazed teenyboppers, riots in the streets, women in chains. These are the powerful secret weapons of war.

For the King’s best assassin, failure is never an option. But when the head of her Order sends her on an impossible mission, Heather Kilgore begins to question everything she knows. And she’ll have to make a choice: Start a war or fail her mission.

And Drift Away is the sixteenth mission of Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem. It follows a mismatched duo of itinerant comedian and outlaw wizard as they roam the galaxy trying to eke out a living and stay ahead of the consequences of their actions. Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem looks back at an earlier era in the Black Ocean universe, and returning readers will get to see how some of their favorite characters came to be. Fans of morally gray heroes and slick talking conmen will love this series.

Sometimes my life doesn't feel real to me. It's so different - infinitely better - than anything I had on Earth. I'm not running or hiding or afraid anymore. I'm not dealing with the trauma of my past. I'm not alone because I have Lorne. Every time I look into his eyes, everything else fades away - the war, the fight ahead, the fact that we have so much work to do if we want to win. I see him and I forget that SpaceTech is moving against us, but it's not just me I'm trying to save anymore. It's the Aunare.