Sky Walking An Astronaut’s Memoir

Astronaut Tom Jones had trained for years for one climactic moment: his first step through an airlock into the vast nothingness of space. What neither he nor anyone else had counted on was a door that refused to open. But that is the nature of space flight (as recent experience tragically proves) — anything can, and sometimes does, go wrong. Fully aware of the possibility of disaster, astronauts still dare to venture to the edge of the cosmos in search of knowledge and adventure. Sky Walking is the story of one of those brave explorers. Jones spent eleven years in the NASA astronaut program, making four trips into space. He ultimately spent fifty-two days orbiting Earth, including more than nineteen hours outside during extravehicular activity — that is, sky walking. Jones’s readers get the inside story, written with a lyrical pen, on life in the new century with NASA, the space shuttle, and the International Space Station.

They’ll read about the shock and thrill of liftoff, find out how strange it was for a former Cold Warrior to find himself working hand-in-hand with his former rivals, the Russians, and get a vicarious feel for the overwhelming experience of a walk in space — orbiting Earth at more than 17,000 miles per hour, 200 miles up, with only a spacesuit separating Jones from oblivion.