The Story of the Space Shuttle

Rating:
Summary: Readable details about today's space program
Review: Pick up any of the Praxis-Springer books and you'll think it's a textbook. And that is partly a correct assumption. This book is different in its narrative, however. It's not just dry facts, but an interesting collection of accomplishments.
David M. Harland's Story of the Space Shuttle is very well written and anybody who has the slightest passing interest in America's space program will enjoy it.
It's really broken down into three or four sections. The first 200 pages or so deals with a chronological highlight of every shuttle mission. You could stop reading there and have enjoyed a book on the shuttle program and learned quite a bit about what the shuttle's science and engineering accomplishments were (which are myriad and too many to list even though many would have you believe the shuttle never did much of anything).
The next 200 pages deals with detailed discussions about spacewalks, science performed on the shuttle and its contributions to the Russian Mir Space Station and the International Space Station.
At the end, there is list of every shuttle flight that includes: orbiter information, cargo manifest, crew list, launch dates and major achievements for each flight.
This is a great, interesting work that I would advise anybody over the age of 10 to read.