Final Orbit
Download "Chris Hadfield discusses his new book Final Orbit" transcript (PDF 75 KB).
1975. A new Apollo mission launches into orbit, on course to dock with a Russian Soyuz craft: three NASA astronauts and three cosmonauts, joining to celebrate a new dawn of Soviet-American cooperation.
But a third power is rising in the race to dominate Space. As NASA Flight Controller Kaz Zemeckis listens in from Earth, three of the six astronauts are killed in a depressurisation accident. And from a remote location in east Asia, a capsule secretly launches with China’s very first astronaut aboard, purpose unknown . . .
Full of Cold War intrigue and real historical characters, Final Orbit accelerates to a thrilling conclusion—and brings to life the loneliness, majesty and pure rush of Space flight, with all of the hard-won experience of a writer who is himself one of the most decorated astronauts alive.