Nicholas Schmidle

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.

Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut

Test Gods

Mavis Gallant

Malcolm Gladwell

Toni Bentley

Alec Wilkinson

Rachel Aviv

Oito grandes reportagens sobre crimes da melhor revista jornalística do mundo Fundada pelos jornalistas Harold Ross e Jane Grant em 1925, a New Yorker é uma instituição norte-americana. Desde a sua fundação, a New Yorker se destacou pelo espaço que dava para os novos talentos literários, a sensibilidade fina com que analisava as notícias contemporâneas, e o rigoroso processo de checagem de dados, que até hoje é reconhecido como um dos melhores da imprensa mundial. John Hersey, Hannah Arendt, Dorothy Parker, Philip Roth, J.D. Salinger, John Updike, John Cheever e Jonathan Safran Foer são alguns dos nomes da longa lista de autores consagrados que contribuíram com contos, ensaios críticos, ou reportagens. Um trabalho, porém, é crucial para entender a gênese do livro Os piores crimes da revista New Yorker. Em 1965, quando Truman Capote iniciou a série de artigos na revista que viriam a se tornar o livro "A Sangue Frio", deu-se início a um novo gênero literário; o chamado "crime real", que nas décadas seguintes se consolidaria como um dos mais populares gêneros literários da nossa era. O livro Os piores crimes da revista New Yorker é uma seleção dos melhores artigos publicados nas últimas décadas, tratando de crimes reais, suas consequências, e o que eles podem jogar de luz sobre nossos sistemas legais, nossa sociedade, e nossa humanidade.

Os piores crimes da revista New Yorker

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. But most of all is it a story about how all of us pursue meaning in our lives—and the fulfillment of our dreams. Based on 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 who lost his life; 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 encounters out in the Mojave Desert as they design, build, and test-fly their private rocketship. Gripping and novelistic, Test Gods leads us, through human drama, into a previously unseen world—and beyond.

A gritty, lively, and revelatory look inside the crucial and volatile nation of Pakistan In To Live or to Perish Forever, Nicholas Schmidle takes readers to Pakistan's rioting streets, to Taliban camps in the North-West Frontier Province, and on many surprising adventures as he provides a contemporary history of this country long riven by internal conflict. With the intimacy and good humor available only to the most fearless and open-eyed reporters, Schmidle narrates what was arguably the most turbulent period of Pakistan's recent history, a time when President Pervez Musharraf lost his power and the Taliban found theirs, and when Americans began to realize that Pakistan's fate is inextricably linked with our own. In February 2006 Schmidle had traveled to Pakistan hoping to learn about the place dubbed "the most dangerous country in the world." It was while there that he befriended a radical cleric (who became an enemy of the state and was killed), came to crave the smell of tear gas (because it assured him that he was sufficiently close to the action), and in the end, was deported by the Pakistani authorities, managed to get back into the country, and was chased out a second time.

Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan

To Live or to Perish Forever

Meet the astronauts leading the way to a new world of space travel. 'Masterly' New York Times 'Riveting' Scott Kelly 'Remarkable' The Times __ When Richard Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004, his goal was simple: to offer paying customers a trip to space by the end of the decade. Seventeen years, countless delays, and one catastrophic crash later, his space tourism dream may finally be on the verge of becoming a reality. New Yorker journalist Nicholas Schmidle knows that story intimately. He spent nearly four years embedded with Virgin Galactic at its California hangar, meeting the individuals working to make commercial space travel possible. Now, Schmidle offers the definitive account of life inside the new space race. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with Virgin's lead test pilot, Mark Stucky, Test Gods describes the making of a modern astronaut. Schmidle recounts Stucky's life - from starry-eyed youth to NASA, the Air Force, and Virgin Galactic; and through dozens of gruelling test flights to his first successful trip beyond the earth's atmosphere. Along the way, we meet the colourful cast of engineers, executives and mechanics battling to take Virgin to space. There's Branson, who emerges as an excitable if overoptimistic evangelist for commercial space travel. There's Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic's grounded, unflappable president. And there's Mike Alsbury, the pilot whose momentary miscalculation sends his aircraft crashing into the Mojave Desert - making him one of the first casualties of the new space race. The result is a compelling examination of the inner lives of a new generation of astronauts. Theirs is a world where the line between lunacy and genius is blurred, and where no sacrifice is too great in pursuit of the dream of space travel. __ 'Adventure in its purest form - rich with risk, courage and friendships.' Bear Grylls 'A hurtling narrative . . . A fitting twenty-first-century sequel to The Right Stuff.' Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain 'So exciting. A new generation with The Right Stuff.' Dan Snow

Nicholas Schmidle

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