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Test Gods
- Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut
- Narrated by: Nicholas Schmidle
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's Summary
This program is read by the author.
In the spirit of The Right Stuff, updated for the 21st century, Test Gods is an epic story about extreme bravery and sacrifice, about the thin line between lunacy and genius. Most of all, it is a story about the pursuit of meaning in our lives - and the fulfillment of our dreams.
Working from exclusive inside reporting, New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle tells the remarkable story of the test pilots, engineers, and visionaries behind Virgin Galactic’s campaign to build a space tourism company. Schmidle follows a handful of characters - Mark Stucky, Virgin’s lead test pilot; Richard Branson, the eccentric billionaire funding the venture; Mike Moses, the grounded, unflappable president; Mike Alsbury, the test pilot killed in a fatal crash; and others - through personal and professional dramas, in pursuit of their collective goal: to make space tourism a reality.
Along the way, Schmidle weaves his relationship with his father - a former fighter pilot and decorated war hero - into the tragedies and triumphs that Branson’s team confronts out in the Mojave desert as they design, build, and test-fly their private rocket ship. Gripping and novelistic, Test Gods leads us, through human drama, into a previously unseen world - and beyond.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
What listeners say about Test Gods
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tikicarver
- 06-19-21
accurate acount
I was an engineer at Scaled and part of the team that designed and built SpaceShipTwo.
I worked daily with Forger and the others in this book. this account of what happened is very accurate.
1 person found this helpful
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- jb_sey
- 06-04-23
A tale of fatherhood, family, colleagues, friends, aviators, astronauts and so much more
A much deeper story than Commercial access to space. A tale of fatherhood, family, colleagues, friends, aviators, astronauts and so much more. I was intrigued at the surface of the book about commercial space from a test pilot’s perspectives but what I found was even better! The author is an excellent storyteller and performs the reading in a way that puts you into the action. I was recommended this book by a close friend and I waited far to link to dive in. I’m looking forward to more awesome content from this author. From a pilot and aerospace engineer’s perspective this book had great technical content and was very accurately depicted, that is very rare!
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- Shauntel M. Williams
- 05-28-23
Forger is a bad ass
It’s great to hear this story with all the inside details. Very interesting and real. Forger sounds like a fun person to have a beer with.
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- Rebecca Bridges
- 12-30-22
Must read
History of the space industry that is a must read. Fairly recent history to know.
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- Sam C.
- 08-16-22
A Window Into Commercial Space
Entertaining story covering failures, triumphs and future hopes. The book is an interesting blend of personal stories, their impact on other people in the story (including the Author) and what the events of this story might mean for the future of commercial space (be it tourism, exploration or both).
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- John W. Zins
- 06-30-22
Accurate
I was aquatinted with the Spaceship Company in Mojave in 2019 and 2021. Plus I had a friend who previously worked for Scaled Composites and knew a lot of the pilots and workers. The story told in this book in my opinion is accurate and very well done. My hat is off to Nicholas Schindler for injecting the human element into the difficult and dangerous task of going into space.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-03-22
Approved by Burt Rutan
This was a fantastic story to hear about a company I invest in. Recently the company I work for in Coeur d Alene Idaho hosted Burt Rutan as a speaker for a "fireside chat" one question he was asked was, "what are 3 books you think everyone should read?" This was his first recommendation and he talked about it for 10 mins. This was a fantastic story and awesome to know information about our town will be forever remembered. Thank you for this literary artwork.
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- Jay L
- 01-17-22
Unexpectedly good
What I thought was a story about test pilots transforms into a wonderful reflection on fathers and sons and efforts to “push the envelope.”. Although not as high profile, this is every bit as good as THE RIGHT STUFF.
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- Daniel Cascaddan
- 10-23-21
Exceptional
This topic is near and dear to my heart. Usually when I read books about it, they are "journalistic" misunderstandings of much of the material. And so this one, the author having done such a good job, gave me extra pleasure. Any sort of an understanding of the pilot soul can seldom be found by someone who is not one of us, and rarely well articulated BY any of us. This guy, in attempt to understand his father, as well as the main pilot in this account, has managed to accomplish this rare and difficult feat with touching grace.
Of course, since I will almost certainly never get to space, a knowledge that I have had to live when since the day when I was twenty-three years old and got the second letter from the Navy telling me that Congress had cancelled funding for the NAVCAD program and I would not be going to Naval Air Officer Candidate School in Pensacola to become an aviator after all, this story was especially hard to read. Yet it was well worth the pain.
I also have the redemptive knowledge that even though the near certain failure of Virgin Galactic to ever achieve their ultimate goals has led to them summarily firing a real "right stuff" exhibiting pilot like Stucky, that he is better off at Space-X anyway. I am glad that he was one of the first two Americans to return to orbit on an American spacecraft, after all that time we were a non-spacefaring nation, ending the shame of riding to the International Space Station on enemy spacecraft.
God Speed, Forger!
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- Jason
- 09-05-21
interesting but full of filler
the book was interesting and candid, but crammed full of filler, especially at the end. it was also surprisingly blind to the shocking selfishness and snobby elitism of the pilots. the effort to tie in the story of his father with the story of virgin galactic goes nowhere and is pointless.
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Excellent Book.. couldn’t stop listening
- By Leah on 03-17-23
By: Laura Savino
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The Burning Blue
- The Untold Story of Christa McAuliffe and NASA's Challenger Disaster
- By: Kevin Cook
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 28, 1986, NASA's space shuttle Challenger exploded after blasting off from Cape Canaveral. Christa McAuliffe, America's "Teacher in Space", was instantly killed, along with the other six members of the mission. At least that's what most of us remember. Kevin Cook tells us what really happened on that ill-fated, unforgettable day. He traces the pressures - leading from NASA to the White House - that triggered the fatal order to launch on an ice-cold Florida morning.
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Not bad, but not much new either
- By Dave on 07-27-22
By: Kevin Cook
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How to Make a Spaceship
- A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight
- By: Julian Guthrie, Richard Branson - preface, Stephen Hawking - afterword
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the bullet-shaped SpaceShipOne and the other teams in the hunt is an extraordinary tale of making the impossible possible. It is driven by outsized characters - Burt Rutan, Richard Branson, John Carmack, Paul Allen - and obsessive pursuits. In the end, as Diamandis dreamed, the result wasn't just a victory for one team; it was the foundation for a new industry and a new age.
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A Fun and Thrilling Ride
- By Gillian on 09-28-16
By: Julian Guthrie, and others
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In the Shadow of the Moon
- A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969
- By: Francis French, Colin Burgess
- Narrated by: Gary L. Willprecht
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In the Shadow of the Moon tells the story of the most exciting and challenging years in spaceflight, with two superpowers engaged in a titanic struggle to land one of their own people on the moon. Drawing on interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, their families, technicians, and scientists, as well as rarely seen Soviet and American government documents, the authors craft a remarkable story of the golden age of spaceflight as both an intimate human experience and a rollicking global adventure.
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Interesting book for space afficionados
- By Leslie F. on 04-21-16
By: Francis French, and others
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Nerves of Steel
- How I Followed My Dreams, Earned My Wings, and Faced My Greatest Challenge
- By: Captain Tammie Jo Shults
- Narrated by: Tammie Jo Shults - introduction, Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Nerves of Steel is the captivating true story of Tammie Jo Shults’ remarkable life - from growing up the daughter of a humble rancher, to breaking through gender barriers as one of the Navy’s first female F/A-18 Hornet pilots, to safely landing the severely crippled Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 and helping save the lives of 148 people.
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Impressive
- By Jean on 10-29-19
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Beyond
- The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space
- By: Stephen Walker
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Travelling at almost 18,000 miles per hour - 10 times faster than a rifle bullet - Yuri Gagarin circles the globe in just 106 minutes. From his windows, he sees the Earth as nobody has before, crossing a sunset and a sunrise, crossing oceans and continents, witnessing its beauty and its fragility. While his launch begins in total secrecy, within hours of his landing, he has become a world celebrity - the first human to leave the planet. Beyond tells the thrilling story behind that epic flight on its 60th anniversary.
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A remarkable story on many levels
- By Dipam on 03-22-22
By: Stephen Walker
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Jet Boss
- A Female Pilot on Taking Risks and Flying High
- By: Laura Savino
- Narrated by: Captain Laura Savino
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Captain Laura Savino takes you directly into the cockpit for an exclusive look into the boy's club of airline pilots—told through the eyes of the first female pilot many of them ever flew with.
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Excellent Book.. couldn’t stop listening
- By Leah on 03-17-23
By: Laura Savino
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Flying Free
- My Victory over Fear to Become the First Latina Pilot on the US Aerobatic Team
- By: Cecilia Aragon
- Narrated by: Roxanne Hernandez
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The daughter of a Chilean father and a Filipina mother, Cecilia Rodriguez Aragon grew up as a shy, timid child in a small Midwestern town. Targeted by school bullies and dismissed by many of her teachers, she worried that people would find out the truth: that she was INTF. Incompetent. Nerd. Terrified. Failure. Yet in the span of just six years, Cecilia became the first Latina pilot to secure a place on the United States Unlimited Aerobatic Team and earn the right to represent her country at the Olympics of aviation, the World Aerobatic Championships. How did she do it?
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This story is amazing!
- By Angie Griffin on 02-24-23
By: Cecilia Aragon
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The Right Stuff
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Dennis Quaid
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure: namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers that made The Right Stuff a classic.
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Righteous Book, Righteous Narrator, Righteous MEN!
- By Gillian on 02-08-18
By: Tom Wolfe
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The Last Man On the Moon
- By: Eugene Cernan
- Narrated by: Eugene Cernan
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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This is the story of a unique American hero who came of age as an astronaut during the few dramatic years when man reached the moon. Cernan's career spanned the entire Apollo program, from the tragic fire that killed three of his comrades on Apollo 1, through the moment when he left man's last footprint on the moon as commander of Apollo 17.
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Yet Another Perspective
- By Shellbin on 12-28-12
By: Eugene Cernan
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Mercury Rising
- John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War
- By: Jeff Shesol
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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If the United States couldn’t catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War. On February 20, 1962, when John Glenn blasted into orbit aboard Friendship 7, his mission was not only to circle the planet; it was to calm the fears of the free world and renew America’s sense of self-belief. Mercury Rising recreates the tension and excitement of a flight that shifted the momentum of the space race and put the United States on the path to the moon.
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Fascinating
- By Pianoman on 07-03-21
By: Jeff Shesol
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The Father, Son, and Holy Shuttle
- Growing Up an Astronaut's Kid in the Glorious 80s
- By: Patrick Mullane
- Narrated by: Luke Covert
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The families behind America’s astronaut heroes are just like yours...sort of. This is the hilarious true story of one of those families. While many children grow up wanting to become an astronaut, Patrick Mullane grew up the child of one. In his memoir, The Father, Son, and Holy Shuttle: Growing Up an Astronaut’s Kid in the Glorious 80s, Mullane shares his hilarious coming-of-age story. It’s a story about his quirky and death-defying father, a mother with a secret, and a cast of characters from his extended family who showed their love for him in often bizarre ways.
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Great personal story! Entertaining and funny.
- By Alex MacPhail on 01-10-22
By: Patrick Mullane