Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut

New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle tells here the remarkable story of the test pilots, engineers, and visionaries behind Virgin Galactic's campaign to build a space tourism company.

Along the way, Schmidle weaves his relationship with his father - a former fighter pilot and decorated war hero - into the tragedies and triumphs that the team confronts out in the Mojave Desert as they design, build, and test-fly their private rocket ship. Gripping and novelistic, Test Gods lead us, through human drama, into a previously unseen world - and beyond.