Testing the Limits: Aviation Medicine and the Origins of Manned Space Flight (Centennial of Flight Series) [Hardcover]

Maura Phillips Mackowski (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The author demonstrates a flair for drama and description. Using key details and well-told anecdotes, she evokes sympathy for the humor and pathos of the scientists’ lives and careers. In doing so, she succeeds in recognizing the life in what could be, in lesser hands, a dull recitation of experiments and promotions. . . . captures the excitement and human drama of aviation and space medicine.”--Margaret A. Weitekamp, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

(Margaret A. Weitekamp, Hobart and William Smith Colleges )

About the Author

For more than ten years, Maura Phillips Mackowski, who holds a Ph.D. in history, worked as a freelance writer covering high-tech topics, particularly centered on aerospace. Now a resident of Gilbert, Arizona, she teaches history at Arizona State University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: TAMU Press (December 2, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585444391
• ISBN-13: 978-1585444397
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,524,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Maura Mackowski detoured along the way to the history Ph.D. cited on the book flap. She earned a B.A. in German, then went to work in personnel management for a steel distributor in St. Louis. She began freelancing for newspaper, magazine, and reference publishers in the U.S. and Europe, then decided to emphasize book writing. Two more college degrees and - voila! - a book. Maura did teach at ASU as noted on the dust jacket but on a "hired gun" basis (although they don't call it that there.) She is working on a book for NASA, a history of their life sciences research, 1980-2005. On the back burner are a book on the history of German aviation medicine and another on a science postdoc program of the 1920s, meant to educate young European scientists abroad to ensure that WWI would never happen again. A noble effort, it did not succeed in the way anyone hoped.