Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts--from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan--have left their lives behind to travel at warp speed as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise...

A lone astronaut. An impossible mission. An ally he never imagined. Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission--and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions...

"In the Quick is the story of June, a brilliant but difficult girl, unloved by her adoptive family, with a gift for mechanical invention, who leaves home to begin a grueling astronaut training program. Six years later, she has gained a coveted post as an engineer on a space station, but is haunted by the mystery of Inquiry, a revolutionary spacecraft powered by her beloved late uncle's fuel cells. The spacecraft went missing when June was twelve years...

When an ultra-rich space tourist visits the orbiting International Space Station, NASA expects a $100 million win-win: his visit will bring in much needed funding and publicity. But the tourist venture turns into a scheme of terror. Together with an extremist cosmonaut, the tourist slaughters all the astronauts on board the million-pound ISS--and prepares to crash it into New York City at 17,500 miles an hour, causing more devastation than a hundred...

"In a world transformed by an unknown disaster, two outsiders must grapple with love, regret, and survival. Augustine, a brilliant and aging astronomer, refuses to evacuate his remote research post when news of a catastrophe arrives. He and a mysterious child, left behind in the evacuation, are trapped alone in the Arctic Circle, with no one responding to their radio calls. Meanwhile, Mission Specialist Sullivan is on a long return flight from Jupiter....

When an enigmatic monolith is found buried on the moon, scientists are amazed to discover that it's at least 3 million years old. Even more amazing, after it's unearthed the artifact releases a powerful signal aimed at Saturn. What sort of alarm has been triggered? To find out, a manned spacecraft, the Discovery, is sent to investigate. Its crew is highly trained--the best--and they are assisted by a self-aware computer, the ultra-capable HAL 9000....

A young child thinks about what it would be like to be an astronaut and go out on a mission into space.

Walli Beckwith is a model astronaut. So when she refuses to leave her post at the international space station following an accident that forces her fellow astronauts to evacuate, her American and Russian colleagues are mystified. But Walli is stuck in a race against time to save both a precious part of the world and the life of her niece, Ha health care provider for indigenous people in the Amazon jungle who are being burnt out of their homes by paramilitary...

Decades after her grieving father, a laid-off NASA scientist, triggers chaotic changes in his pursuit of life-extending technology, an astronaut confronts dangerous family secrets to stop a world-threatening crisis.

"Sirantha Jax isn't known for diplomatic finesse. As a 'jumper' who navigates ships through grimspace, she's used to kicking ass first and taking names later--much later. She's not exactly the obvious choice to sell the Conglomerate to the Ithtorians, a people whose opinions of humans are as hard as their exoskeletons. And Ithtorian council meetings aren't the only place where Ambassador Jax needs to maneuver carefully. Her lover is frozen in permanent...