Into the Black cover art

Into the Black

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Into the Black

By: Rowland White
Narrated by: Eric Meyers
Try Premium Plus free

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.99

Buy Now for $26.99

About this listen

On 12th April 1981 a revolutionary new spacecraft blasted off from Florida on her maiden flight. NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia was the most advanced flying machine ever built - the high watermark of post-war aviation development. A direct descendant of the record-breaking X-planes the likes of which Chuck Yeager had tested in the skies over the Mojave Desert, Columbia was a winged rocket plane, the size of an airliner, capable of flying to space and back before being made ready to fly again. She was the world's first real spaceship.

The Shuttle's Commander, moonwalker John Young, was already a veteran of five spaceflights. Alongside him, Pilot Bob Crippen was making his first, but Crip, taken in by the space agency after the cancellation of a top secret military space station programme in 1969, had worked on the Shuttle's development for a decade. Never before had a crew been so well prepared for their mission.

Yet less than an hour after Young and Crippen's spectacular departure from the Cape it was clear that all was not well. Tiles designed to protect Columbia from the blowtorch burn of re-entry were missing from the heatshield. If the damage to their ship was too great the astronauts would be unable to return safely to earth. But neither they nor mission control possessed any way of knowing.

Instead, NASA turned to the National Reconnaissance Office, a spy agency hidden deep inside the Pentagon whose very existence was classified.

Into the Black is a thrilling race against time; a gripping high stakes cold-war story, and a celebration of a beyond the state-of-the-art machine that, hailed as one of the seven new wonders of the world, rekindled our passion for spaceflight.

With a foreword by Astronaut Richard Truly.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2016 Rowland White (P)2016 Random House AudioBooks
20th Century Aeronautics & Astronautics Air Forces Armed Forces Astronomy Astronomy & Space Science Military Modern Science World Aviation Interstellar

Critic Reviews

"Beautifully researched and written, Into the Black tells the true, complete story of the Space Shuttle better than it's ever been told before." (Colonel Chris Hadfield, former Astronaut and Space Station Commander)
"Brilliantly revealed, Into the Black is the finely tuned true story of the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Rowland White has magnificently laid bare the unknown dangers and unseen hazards of that first mission.... Once read, not forgotten." (Clive Cussler)
All stars
Most relevant  
love the background of nasa and manndd space flight. the intro to the story of the shuttle years.

great insight into the heavens thru the shuttle

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

And excellent combination of technical and personal achievements. Amongst the best space/aviation books I have yet read.

If you like space stuff, this is a cracker.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The level of technical detail was excellent. The history of the MOL Program was particularly interesting, while it wove it's way through the entire book.
One of the best non-fiction books I've read.
Simply Brilliant.

exceptionally well told story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

good level of technical and variety to make it interesting. lot of stuff about NASA that I did not know....

great listen for anyone keen on NASA

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This book satisfies the technical part of my curiosity and filled many gaps in knowledge about how space shuttle works.
What I found quite annoying was narrator’s voice impressions as he gave everybody that slacked like voice.

Fantastic story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Great read if into space exploration, good detail about the shuttle’s inception. Worth a listen

Good read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I really enjoyed the story and the narration was excellent. Very entertaining and informative tale off the shuttle’s development and first flight.

Great tale: well told & well read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I feel I would have enjoyed this more had a read the book myself. The narration was done well, though I found the exaggerated southern accents a bit grating at times. Eric Meyers made all the NASA astronauts sound like Southern hillbillies!

Well written story though.

Good story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Feels like you are there. This reading gets you right in the thick of the astronauts, engineers, flight directors and all the other personnel and capabilities needed to put man into space. very enjoyable book

Fascinating history of early space flight

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

What a wonderful tour through the history of the Shuttle. So many background details and facts that I never knew, Well done to the author and all who helped contribute to the content.

A great tribute

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.