First Man - The Life of Neil A. Armstrong

On July 20, 1969, a quiet, determined man from Wapakoneta, Ohio, stepped out of his fragile spacecraft and into history. Neil Armstrong--engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, astronaut and devoted family man--became the first man to walk on the moon. In this powerful, unrelenting biography of a man of no particularly spectacular talent yet who stands as a living testimony to everyday grit and determination, former NASA historian Hansen has achieved something quite remarkable. Like a rich pointillist painting, he has created a magnificent panorama of the second half of the American 20th century by assembling a multitude of luminescent moments in one man's life.

Ambassadors from Earth - Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft

Gallentine, a film and video engineer and a lifelong space buff, tells tales about the exciting early days of unmanned space exploration in this sprawling account. From Sputnik through James Van Allen and his assistant George Ludwig's discovery, with a tape recorder, of massive amounts of radioactivity above the atmosphere, to the two Voyager missions with their gold-plated Rosetta stones, many lifelong space buffs will know Gallentine's story by heart. What makes his account special is the amount of access he had to Van Allen and Ludwig, who shared previously unknown details of their early collaboration.

Homesteading Space - The Skylab Story

Pioneering long-duration spaceflight, the three Skylab missions are chronicled here by an authorial team that includes Skylab astronauts Owen Garriott and Joe Kerwin. Written largely in oral-history style, with extensive quotation from participants in the Skylab program, the work explains the genesis of the space-station concept, the decisions that led to its actual configuration, and the station’s near-death experience when launched in 1973. As space-history readers know, critical pieces of Skylab ripped off during its launch, causing a crisis overcome by repairs the first crew made in one of NASA’s finer moments.

Mystery at the Alamo

The Aldens are asked to be extras in a movie while visiting the Alamo but things are not picture perfect. They have to discover who stole a precious ring from the beautiful star, Claire, and they find out many people are jealous of her.

Mystery of the Lake Monster

The Aldens find evidence that the stories about a monster in Lake Lucille might be real.

The Aldens are spending a week at a lodge on a lake in the Adirondack Mountains in New York State.