posted 08-31-2023 09:50 AM               

Rather than a nuts and bolts book on spacesuits and hardware, this story details the human experience of "walking" and working in open space. Much like our first book Come Fly With Us, this is a story about the people — those who have had the opportunity of a lifetime to conduct an EVA, and those who trained them, designed the hardware, and planned the missions. Our ultimate goal with the story was to put YOU in the spacesuit, and participate vicariously in the ultimate experience of walking in space.

In the course of writing this book, we had the opportunity to interview nearly 20 astronauts spanning the Apollo, Skylab, Space Shuttle, Shuttle/Mir, and ISS programs, and a number of trainers and managers who prepared them for EVA. Of course, you will find a wealth of early NASA internal documents sprinkled with insightful comments from some familiar names. We also present rare material related to the early Soviet EVA efforts as well.

posted 09-30-2024 10:59 AM               

To say this book has been challenging is an understatement. We started brainstorming this at Spacefest X in 2019. We could have never guessed what lay ahead in terms of the number of interviews, limitations imposed during the pandemic, and the challenge of covering such a long period of space history (60 years!) in one book.

But the final result is something we are both quite proud of. We set out, as we did in "Come Fly With Us: NASA's Payload Specialist Program," to tell a story of the people involved, and in this case, the experience of conducting a spacewalk from a first-person perspective. We endeavored to "put the reader in the spacesuit," while at the same time sharing a high-level history of the procedures, equipment, and training required to exit a spacecraft and do useful work. With dozens of interviews of the astronauts, engineers, managers, and trainers, and a mountain of internal documents culled from NASA's archives, this book captures the thrill, hardship, danger, and lifelong reward of participating in EVA from many different perspectives.

We'll keep everyone updated as we approach our publication date.

posted 01-05-2025 10:29 AM               

There are two Apollo chapters. The first focuses on Apollo 9 (thanks to a great interview with Rusty), but also includes a short summary of the lunar EVAs. Much has been written about the lunar missions – gravity assisted EVAs – so we didn’t attempt to go into detail. Our primary focus was weightless spacewalks. But we felt the lunar missions deserved mention.

The second Apollo chapter (a short one) is dedicated to the three deep space EVAs (with a catchy chapter title, by the way). As you mention all three CMPs are deceased and we found no NASA papers or reports with new material on these amazing spacewalks. So, we tried to weave a story based primarily on NASA oral histories and mission audio. But there are some good stories on the deep space EVAs.

posted 03-23-2025 09:41 PM               

"Working in a space suit in hard vacuum is likely the most demanding test of an astronaut's physical skills and mental concentration. Into the Void reveals in fascinating detail how spacewalkers, flight controllers, and suit engineers mastered this difficult art to explore the moon, recover crippled spacecraft, and build an expansive space station on the high frontier. Lock your helmet ring, open chapter 1, and float outside!"—Tom Jones, veteran spacewalker and astronaut and author of Space Shuttle Stories

"Into the Void helps us experience the high-stakes, awe-inspiring, and pressure-laden realm of space walks, where intrepid humans dare to leave behind the safety of their spacecraft for critical work that can only be accomplished in the unforgiving void."—Jonathan H. Ward, coauthor of Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars and Bringing Columbia Home

"Into the Void presents a detailed background of extravehicular activity training and how Murphy's Law must always be accounted for. The reader will come to understand how the first and only three-person space walk during STS-49, my second spaceflight, was conceived and accomplished."—Bruce Melnick, mission specialist for space shuttle missions STS-41 and STS-49