Too Far From Home, Chris Jones
Too Far From Home, Chris Jones
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Too Far From Home
A Story of Life and Death in Space

Author: Chris Jones

Narrator: Erik Davies

Abridged: 6 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/06/2007


Synopsis

An incredible, true-life adventure set on the most dangerous frontier of all—outer spaceIn the nearly forty years since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, space travel has come to be seen as a routine enterprise—at least until the shuttle Columbia disintegrated like the Challenger before it, reminding us, once again, that the dangers are all too real.
Too Far from Home vividly captures the hazardous realities of space travel. Every time an astronaut makes the trip into space, he faces the possibility of death from the slightest mechanical error or instance of bad luck: a cracked O-ring, an errant piece of space junk, an oxygen leak . . . There are a myriad of frighteningly probable events that would result in an astronaut’s death. In fact, twenty-one people who have attempted the journey have been killed.
Yet for a special breed of individual, the call of space is worth the risk. Men such as U.S. astronauts Donald Pettit and Kenneth Bowersox, and Russian flight engineer Nikolai Budarin, who in November 2002 left on what was to be a routine fourteen-week mission maintaining the International Space Station.
But then, on February 23, 2003, the Columbia exploded beneath them. Despite the numerous news reports examining the tragedy, the public remained largely unaware that three men remained orbiting the earth. With the launch program suspended indefinitely, these astronauts had suddenly lost their ride home.
Too Far from Home chronicles the efforts of the beleaguered Mission Controls in Houston and Moscow as they work frantically against the clock to bring their men safely back to Earth, ultimately settling on a plan that felt, at best, like a long shot.
Latched to the side of the space station was a Russian-built Soyuz TMA-1 capsule, whose technology dated from the late 1960s (in 1971 a malfunction in the Soyuz 11 capsule left three Russian astronauts dead.) Despite the inherent danger, the Soyuz became the only hope to return Bowersox, Budarin, and Pettit home.
Chris Jones writes beautifully of the majesty and mystique of space travel, while reminding us all how perilous it is to soar beyond the sky.

About The Author

CHRIS JONES joined Esquire as a contributing editor and sports columnist, and became a Writer at Large when he won the 2005 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing for the story that became the basis for this book. Previously he was a sportswriter at the National Post, where he won an award as Canada’s outstanding young journalist. His work has also appeared in The Best American Magazine Writing and The Best American Sports Writing anthologies. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bree on February 07, 2012

Oh, that all nonfiction were this well written.......more

Goodreads review by Kathy on March 24, 2019

This book happened to be on the library shelf in the vicinity of "Endurance", which I read last month. It looked interesting, so I took it home. I almost put it down 50 pages in, but instead I skimmed the next 50 pages until the book found its stride at about page 100. First off, the writing is high......more

Goodreads review by Lisa on March 10, 2009

I actually worked with Don Pettit, one of the American astronauts at NASA. He's an amazing guy and the book hardly does the entire experience justice. Hearing the encounter from him, the man who was ACTAULLY on board, makes the book pale in comparison. This is something that should not soon be forgo......more

Goodreads review by Grumpus on June 25, 2007

This is based upon the audio download from [[URL not allowed]] Narrated by: Erik Davies Imagine being stranded in the International Space Station not knowing when the next shuttle is coming to take you home. This is story of two U.S. astronauts and one cosmonaut after the shuttle Columbia was des......more

Goodreads review by Deedee on October 05, 2013

3.5 stars I was surprised when I first started reading this book. I had expected it to be more technical. Instead, alot of the book was "how does it feel", and I wondered, how does Chris Jones know how it feels? Reading the acknowledgements, I found out -- the astronauts involved were thanked for bei......more