This book is part of a book series called True Stories, Hidden Facts .

There are 24 pages in this book. It is lift the flap. This book was published 2009 by Hachette Children's Group .

Adam Sutherland works in the media industry and his interests include popular culture and the world of celebrity.

This book has the following chapters: Breaking the Sound Barrier with a broken rib - The story of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in the Bell X1. Further facts about the x-planes and the test pilots who flew them and who were to become the first astronauts. Gagarin's Spot of Trouble - The story of the first human in space and how it nearly ended in tragedy. Facts about the space race and the animals that were sent to space first. Plus the first woman in space. Spam in a Can - The story of how Gordo Cooper handled a near disaster when the mercury capsule he was piloting lost all power. All Mercury capsules were designed for fully automatic control, a controversial engineering decision which in many ways reduced the role of an astronaut to that of a passenger and stirred Chuck Yeager to describe Mercury astronauts as spam in a can. Further facts on the first American astronauts. The First Walk in Space - The story of Alexei Leonov who exited the airlock of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft to make the first space walk. However, getting back in again proved to be a big problem. Facts on other famous space walks including the first Chinese walk in Sept 2008. Man on the Moon - The amazing story of how Neil Armstrong decided to manually land the Eagle after abort signals warned him of computer malfunctions. Facts contain other moon expeditions and lunar buggies. "Houston We Have A Problem" - The heroic story of how Apollo 13 was crippled and brought back to Earth with limited supplies of oxygen. Facts on the details of what went wrong with diagrams and cutaways of the spaceship. Fire in Space - The near fatal event that saw a blazing fire in the Mir space station through the eyes of the British astronaut on board. Facts about space stations and other close shaves. Shuttle Disaster - The sad story of the first shuttle disaster. Facts on other launch disasters in USA and USSR and other shuttle disaster. Spaceshipone - The story of the first private venture spacecraft to go into space. Problems during the flight almost made the pilot abort and bail out. Facts about the craft with photos and diagrams. Space Tourist - A day in the life of Anousheh Ansari on board the ISS. Facts about the ISS.