Terry Virts in Conversation With Katie Mack

A wildly entertaining account of the rules, lessons, procedures, and experiences of space travel, How to Astronaut (Workman) is a book that will appeal to anyone with even a passing interest in space. Written by Col. Terry Virts, a former NASA astronaut, space shuttle pilot, and International Space Station commander who spent 200 consecutive days in space, it answers all of our curious questions and much more: Here’s how to survive that first brush with weightlessness (in the so-called vomit comet); the nearly indescribable thrill of a first blastoff; managing the daily tasks — eating, bathing, doing chores, going to the bathroom — that are anything but ordinary when you’re orbiting the earth at 17,000 miles per hour; how to don your space suit and head out to work on a spacewalk (“alone in the vacuum”); how to prepare for emergencies of all kinds, from managing “space brain” to dealing with a dead crew member; and what it’s like to return to Earth, including something as seemingly simple as walking after spending six months in zero-G. A born storyteller, Virts reveals the often-untold side of space travel in 51 short chapters filled with a mix of you-are-there detail, a dose of science made simple, and the inherent drama of describing something few will ever know firsthand. Virts will be joined in conversation by theoretical astrophysicist Dr. Katie Mack.

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