Get Your Free Audiobook
-
Outposts on the Frontier: A Fifty-Year History of Space Stations
- Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight
- Narrated by: Mark Rossman
- Length: 21 hrs and 15 mins
- Categories: Computers & Technology, History & Culture
Non-member price: $41.73
People who bought this also bought...
-
Bold They Rise
- The Space Shuttle Early Years, 1972-1986
- By: David Hitt, Heather R. Smith
- Narrated by: Gary L Willprecht
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the Apollo program put 12 men on the moon and safely brought them home, anything seemed possible. In this spirit, the team at NASA set about developing the space shuttle, arguably the most complex piece of machinery ever created.
-
-
Good story, narration a little off
- By Anonymous User on 11-07-2017
-
Wheels Stop: The Tragedies and Triumphs of the Space Shuttle Program, 1986-2011
- Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Space
- By: Rick Houston
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 17 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humanity's first reusable spacecraft and the most complex machine ever built, NASA's space shuttle debuted with great promise and as a dependable source of wonder and national pride. But with the Challenger catastrophe in 1986, the whole space shuttle program came into question, as did NASA itself, so long an institution that was seemingly above reproach. Wheels Stop tells the stirring story of how, after the Challenger disaster, the space shuttle not only recovered but went on to perform its greatest missions.
-
-
Good Book
- By Andrew Lewis on 18-02-2019
-
The X-15 Rocket Plane
- Flying the First Wings into Space
- By: Michelle L. Evans
- Narrated by: Gary L. Willprecht
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the Soviet Union's launch of the first Sputnik satellite in 1957, the Cold War soared to new heights as Americans feared losing the race into space. The X-15 Rocket Plane tells the enthralling yet little-known story of the hypersonic X-15, the winged rocket ship that met this challenge and opened the way into human-controlled spaceflight. Drawing on interviews with those who were there, Michelle Evans captures the drama and excitement of, yes, rocket science.
-
-
Epic!!
- By Beau on 18-01-2019
-
Come Fly with Us
- NASA's Payload Specialist Program (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)
- By: Melvin Croft, John Youskauskas
- Narrated by: Robert J. Eckrich
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Come Fly with Us is the story of an elite group of space travelers who flew as members of many space shuttle crews from pre-Challenger days to Columbia in 2003. Not part of the regular NASA astronaut corps, these professionals known as “payload specialists” came from a wide variety of backgrounds and were chosen for an equally wide variety of scientific, political, and national security reasons.
-
Infinity Beckoned
- Adventuring Through the Inner Solar System, 1969-1989
- By: Jay Gallentine
- Narrated by: Michael Burnette
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Infinity Beckoned illuminates a critical period of space history when humans dared an expansive leap into the inner solar system. Jay Gallentine conveys the trials and triumphs of the people on the ground who conceived and engineered the missions that put robotic spacecraft on the heavenly bodies nearest our own.
-
Go, Flight!
- The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control, 1965–1992 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)
- By: Rick Houston, J. Milt Heflin
- Narrated by: John Gagnepain
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At first glance, it looks like just another auditorium in just another government building. But among the talented men (and later women) who worked in mission control, the room located on the third floor of Building 30—at what is now Johnson Space Center—would become known by many as "the Cathedral." These members of the space program were the brightest of their generations, making split-second decisions that determined the success or failure of a mission.
-
Bold They Rise
- The Space Shuttle Early Years, 1972-1986
- By: David Hitt, Heather R. Smith
- Narrated by: Gary L Willprecht
- Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the Apollo program put 12 men on the moon and safely brought them home, anything seemed possible. In this spirit, the team at NASA set about developing the space shuttle, arguably the most complex piece of machinery ever created.
-
-
Good story, narration a little off
- By Anonymous User on 11-07-2017
-
Wheels Stop: The Tragedies and Triumphs of the Space Shuttle Program, 1986-2011
- Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Space
- By: Rick Houston
- Narrated by: James Killavey
- Length: 17 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Humanity's first reusable spacecraft and the most complex machine ever built, NASA's space shuttle debuted with great promise and as a dependable source of wonder and national pride. But with the Challenger catastrophe in 1986, the whole space shuttle program came into question, as did NASA itself, so long an institution that was seemingly above reproach. Wheels Stop tells the stirring story of how, after the Challenger disaster, the space shuttle not only recovered but went on to perform its greatest missions.
-
-
Good Book
- By Andrew Lewis on 18-02-2019
-
The X-15 Rocket Plane
- Flying the First Wings into Space
- By: Michelle L. Evans
- Narrated by: Gary L. Willprecht
- Length: 20 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With the Soviet Union's launch of the first Sputnik satellite in 1957, the Cold War soared to new heights as Americans feared losing the race into space. The X-15 Rocket Plane tells the enthralling yet little-known story of the hypersonic X-15, the winged rocket ship that met this challenge and opened the way into human-controlled spaceflight. Drawing on interviews with those who were there, Michelle Evans captures the drama and excitement of, yes, rocket science.
-
-
Epic!!
- By Beau on 18-01-2019
-
Come Fly with Us
- NASA's Payload Specialist Program (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)
- By: Melvin Croft, John Youskauskas
- Narrated by: Robert J. Eckrich
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Come Fly with Us is the story of an elite group of space travelers who flew as members of many space shuttle crews from pre-Challenger days to Columbia in 2003. Not part of the regular NASA astronaut corps, these professionals known as “payload specialists” came from a wide variety of backgrounds and were chosen for an equally wide variety of scientific, political, and national security reasons.
-
Infinity Beckoned
- Adventuring Through the Inner Solar System, 1969-1989
- By: Jay Gallentine
- Narrated by: Michael Burnette
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Infinity Beckoned illuminates a critical period of space history when humans dared an expansive leap into the inner solar system. Jay Gallentine conveys the trials and triumphs of the people on the ground who conceived and engineered the missions that put robotic spacecraft on the heavenly bodies nearest our own.
-
Go, Flight!
- The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control, 1965–1992 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)
- By: Rick Houston, J. Milt Heflin
- Narrated by: John Gagnepain
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At first glance, it looks like just another auditorium in just another government building. But among the talented men (and later women) who worked in mission control, the room located on the third floor of Building 30—at what is now Johnson Space Center—would become known by many as "the Cathedral." These members of the space program were the brightest of their generations, making split-second decisions that determined the success or failure of a mission.
-
Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story
- Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight
- By: David Hitt, Owen Garriott, Joe Kerwin, and others
- Narrated by: Gary L. Willprecht
- Length: 21 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Homesteading Space is more than a story of technological and scientific success; it is also an absorbing, sometimes humorous, often inspiring account of the determined, hardworking individuals who shepherded the program through a near-disastrous launch, a heroic rescue, an exhausting study of Comet Kohoutek, and the lab's descent into the Indian Ocean. Featuring the unpublished in-flight diary of astronaut Alan Bean, it is replete with the personal recollections and experiences of the Skylab crew and those who worked with them in training, during the mission, and the return.
-
Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965
- By: Francis French, Colin Burgess
- Narrated by: John Gagnepain
- Length: 18 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was a time of bold new technology, historic moments, and international jousting on the final frontier. But it was also a time of human drama, of moments less public but no less dramatic in the lives of those who made the golden age of space flight happen. These are the moments and the lives that Into That Silent Sea captures, a book that tells the intimate stories of the men and women, American and Russian, who made the space race their own and gave the era its compelling character.
-
In the Shadow of the Moon
- A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969
- By: Francis French, Colin Burgess
- Narrated by: Gary L. Willprecht
- Length: 18 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the Shadow of the Moon tells the story of the most exciting and challenging years in spaceflight, with two superpowers engaged in a titanic struggle to land one of their own people on the moon. Drawing on interviews with astronauts, cosmonauts, their families, technicians, and scientists, as well as rarely seen Soviet and American government documents, the authors craft a remarkable story of the golden age of spaceflight as both an intimate human experience and a rollicking global adventure.
-
How to Astronaut
- An Insider's Guide to Leaving Planet Earth
- By: Terry Virts
- Narrated by: Terry Virts
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A wildly entertaining account of the rules, lessons, procedures, and experiences of space travel, How to Astronaut is an audiobook that will appeal to anyone - male or female, young or old - with even a passing interest in space. Written by Col. Terry Virts, a former astronaut, space shuttle pilot, and International Space Station commander who spent 200 consecutive days in space, it answers all of our curious questions and much more.
-
Stealth
- The Secret Contest to Invent Invisible Aircraft
- By: Peter Westwick
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a moonless night in January 1991, a dozen US aircraft appeared in the skies over Baghdad. To the Iraqi air defenses, the planes seemed to come from nowhere. Each aircraft was more than 60 feet in length and with a wingspan of 40 feet, yet its radar footprint was the size of a ball bearing. Here was the first extensive combat application of Stealth technology. And it was devastating.
-
Handprints on Hubble
- An Astronaut's Story of Invention
- By: Kathryn Sullivan
- Narrated by: Christina Moore
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Handprints on Hubble, retired astronaut Kathryn Sullivan describes her work on the NASA team that made all of this possible. Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, recounts how she and other astronauts, engineers, and scientists launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained Hubble, the most productive observatory ever built.
-
The Case for Space
- How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility
- By: Robert Zubrin
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A noted space expert explains the current revolution in spaceflight, where it leads, and why we need it. Astronautical engineer Robert Zubrin spells out the potential of these new developments in an engrossing narrative that is visionary yet grounded by a deep understanding of the practical challenges. Fueled by the combined expertise of the old aerospace industry and the talents of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, spaceflight is becoming cheaper.
-
-
Enjoyable listen
- By scott on 11-02-2021
-
Diary of an Apprentice Astronaut
- By: Samantha Cristoforetti
- Narrated by: Eva Pope
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In space the sun rises and sets 16 times a day. You fly over every sea, every mountain and desert, every city and every port. The most ordinary things - eating, sleeping, brushing your teeth or cutting your hair - have to be relearned, until they become familiar again. This is the story of Samantha Cristoforetti's incredible journey to becoming an astronaut and her journey beyond Earth. Her voyage as an apprentice astronaut began when she was in her early 30s: five years of intense training around the world, from Houston to Japan to the legendary Star City in Russia.
-
Space 2.0
- How Private Spaceflight, a Resurgent NASA, and International Partners are Creating a New Space Age
- By: Rod Pyle, Buzz Aldrin - foreword
- Narrated by: Jack de Golia
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Speaking with key leaders of the latest space programs and innovations, Rod Pyle shares the excitement and promise of this new era of exploration and economic development. From NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, to emerging leaders in the private sector, Space 2.0 examines the new partnerships that are revolutionizing spaceflight and changing the way we reach for the stars.
-
Chasing New Horizons
- Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto
- By: Alan Stern, David Grinspoon
- Narrated by: Alan Stern, David Grinspoon
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On July 14, 2015, something amazing happened. More than three billion miles from Earth, a small NASA spacecraft called New Horizons screamed past Pluto at more than 32,000 miles per hour, focusing its instruments on the long-mysterious icy worlds of the Pluto system, and then, just as quickly, continued on its journey out into the beyond.
-
-
WOW
- By Amazon Customer on 15-08-2019
-
Endurance
- A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery
- By: Scott Kelly
- Narrated by: Scott Kelly
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the NASA astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station - what it's like out there and what it's like now, back here. Enter Scott Kelly's fascinating world and dare to think of your own a little differently. The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for most consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few of us ever have and very few of us ever will.
-
-
The next best thing to being an astronaut
- By Manch on 02-11-2017
-
The Mission
- A True Story
- By: David W. Brown
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 15 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Mission is the Homeric, never-before-told story of modern space exploration, and a magnificent portrait of the inner lives of scientists who study the solar system’s mysterious outer planets. David W. Brown chronicles the remarkable saga of how Europa was won and what it takes to get things done - down here and up there. The Mission is an exuberant masterclass in how a few determined cogs can change an entire machine.
Publisher's Summary
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest man-made structure to orbit Earth and has been conducting research for close to a decade and a half. Yet it is only the latest in a long line of space stations and laboratories that have flown in orbit since the early 1970's. The histories of these earlier programs have been all but forgotten as the public focused on other, higher-profile adventures such as the Apollo moon landings.
Outposts on the Frontier reveals how the Soviets and the Americans combined strengths to build space stations over the past 50 years. At the heart of these scientific advances are people of both greatness and modesty. Jay Chladek documents the historical tapestry of the people, the early attempts at space station programs, and how astronauts and engineers have contributed to and shaped the ISS in surprising ways.
Outposts on the Frontier delves into the intriguing stories behind the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory, the Almaz and Salyut programs, Skylab, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Spacelab, Mir station, Spacehab, and the ISS and gives past-due attention to Vladimir Chelomei, the Russian designer whose influence in space station development is as significant as Sergei Korolev’s in rocketry. Outposts on the Frontier is an informative and dynamic history of humankind’s first outposts on the frontier of space.
The book is published by University of Nebraska Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
Critic Reviews
"Chladek expertly brings to life the stunning successes and tragic failures of space exploration in this worthy addition to science, history, and space collections." (Booklist)
"A notable achievement and an important book." (H-War)
“A well-researched and authoritative book on the global history of space stations...” (Manfred von Ehrenfried, NASA flight controller, 1961-68)
What listeners say about Outposts on the Frontier: A Fifty-Year History of Space Stations
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Jeffrey L. Smith, PE
- 16-09-2020
Good, but not great
I like that there is a book about humanity’s space stations, and this one does cover all the stations hat for built and those that just got cancelled along the way. The book also benefits from time since books like “Dragonfly” and so it gives time for people to give their side to widely shared space anecdotes. But, I had some issues with this book - both the text and narration.
The book has a heavy astronaut focus (who came and went, when they did it, previous careers, where they went to high school etc.), while much less effort is given to the space stations themselves or what they were doing there. Almost no effort is given to the engineers who designed/built the stations, the controllers who operate them, or the scientists that have experiments there.
Next, it keeps everything at somewhat of a surface level without trying to draw many lessons or principles out of the various experiences. Some effort is given to describe a particular space station or space suit, but there’s not much discussion about how ideas evolved from ship to ship, station to station or method to method. Why does a space station look the way it does? How does form follow function?
Next, there are factual errors that I noticed, and I’m sure there are more that I didn’t. The book says both Mark and Scott Kelly graduated from “the Naval Academy” in the same year. None of that statement is true. Mark graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy in ‘86 and Scott graduated from the New York Maritime College in ‘87. Neither of those is Annapolis.
Finally, the narrator added some “issues”. Words and acronyms have some weird pronunciations. The European Space Agency (ESA) is oddly pronounced “eh-sa” instead of the normal “ee-sa” throughout the book. Other words and acronyms are said weird or spelled out. TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) is said “t d r s” instead of the customary “tee-dress”.
As a space fan, I’m glad Chladek covered the topic, but there’s more to expound upon.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Ian
- 20-10-2020
Fantastic Overview
I caught the space but back last year and since have been going though all the space biographies and histories. This book is a great timeline for the world's space programs and I learned some great new stories.
20 Best Fantasy Audiobooks
This genre is so full of talent, it can be difficult to know what to listen to next — so look no further than this list to get you started.



20 Best Nonfiction Audiobooks
From the entire history of humanity to astrophysics, to our gut and mental health, dig into this list and learn something new.



Best Australian Podcasts on Audible
Audible Original Podcasts are free for Audible members. Check out this list of home-grown content, from binge-worthy true crime to self-help.


