Test Gods

March 15, 2021
An intrepid writer for the New Yorker delivers the inside story of the private space industry's first spaceship. Schmidle is a talented journalist, but his achievement getting behind the scenes at Virgin Galactic, one of Richard Branson's most sensational and expensive endeavors, is especially impressive. "It was beyond zany, Branson's dream of sending passengers into space aboard this handmade craft they called SpaceShipTwo," writes the author. "But the zany ones were often the ones who made history." Even reported more traditionally, the story would magnetize readers. There are certainly echoes of The Right Stuff, and Schmidle does an effective job in his juggling of journalistic objectivity, clear admiration for his pioneering biographical subjects, and tribute to his father, Robert Schmidle, a much-admired fighter pilot. In addition to the flamboyant showman Branson, there are appearances by Microsoft's Paul Allen, who funded the $10 million X Prize that challenged private companies to reach space, as well as vignettes celebrating figures like John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, among others. To his credit, Schmidle drills down on a handful of significant figures, including Mark Stucky, a daredevil test pilot who had dreams of becoming an astronaut; peers like Mark Patterson, Luke Colby, and Mike Melville; and the visionary engineers that designed SpaceShipOne, most notably Burt Rutan, whose innovations in design and construction made the winning flight possible. Throughout, Schmidle delivers plenty of captivating drama, from the inevitable tragedy of fatal test-flight crashes to domestic strife stemming from the pilots' singular obsession to the predictable friction between engineers trying to keep the spaceship in one piece and pilots who want to fly as fast and far as possible. Similar stories will be told about competing ventures like Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin or Elon Musk's SpaceX, but Schmidle's agile, compassionate narrative serves as an exciting first word on the subject. A candid and revealing portrayal of extraordinary people striving to breach one of humanity's final frontiers.

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Starred review from May 1, 2021

The thrilling, perilous, and sometimes deadly adventures of the people who are making the dream of commercial space travel a reality play out in this narrative of Virgin Galactic (one of the new generation of space companies, along with SpaceX and Blue Origin). New Yorker writer Schmidle (To Live or To Perish Forever) delves into the construction and testing of the space vehicle that will launch the vision of Richard Branson, the iconoclast British entrepreneur behind Virgin Records. The book interweaves the stories of daring flight test pilot Mark Stucky, other pilots, engineers, and subcontractors. Virgin Galactic plans to eventually take paying passengers into space on SpaceShipTwo, a suborbital space plane built and tested by the firm's engineers and pilots. Like their counterparts at NASA and in the military, Schmidle writes, Stucky and the Virgin pilots "pushed the envelope" in each flight, testing both the spacecraft and their own mettle. VERDICT Schmidle, whose father was a marine fighter pilot and instructor, applies his personal interest in aerospace subjects to this book's extensive research and in-depth interviews. For fans of The Right Stuff or Top Gun.--Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

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