A visual history of NASA's many achievements in manned and unmanned space travel, written by a team of experienced NASA staffers and illustrated with more than 400 images, many of which are previously unpublished photographs from NASA archives. The story of America's Space Age begins in the 1950s with intrepid test pilots venturing ever faster and higher, and opens out into the now-legendary Mercury and Apollo missions of the 1960s that made astronauts into national heroes. The Space Shuttle era shows us what everyday space travel might look like, while grand vistas of the universe expand our sense of wonder. The large format of the book captures both the human drama and the vast scale of NASA's projects.--From publisher description.