Includes index

Prelude--the last time -- The most complex flying machine ever built -- Spaceflight -- Being a flight controller -- Selection -- Becoming flight -- Plan, train, flying -- Shuttle Mir -- The mast -- Life in Mission Control -- Return to flight -- Thirty year learning curve -- Leadership in a high-risk business

"In the tradition of Chris Kraft's Flight and Gene Kranz's Failure Is Not an Option, from the longest-serving Flight Director in NASA's history, a revealing look at the high-stakes work of Mission Control that tells the inside story of the Space Shuttle program that has redefined our relationship with space"--