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Working from exclusive inside reporting, New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle tells the remarkable story of the test pilots, engineers, and visionaries behind Virgin Galactic's campaign to build a space tourism company. Schmidle follows a handful of characters -- Mark Stucky, Virgin's lead test pilot; Richard Branson, the eccentric billionaire funding the venture; Mike Moses, the grounded, unflappable president; Mike Alsbury, the test pilot killed in a fatal crash; and others -- through personal and professional dramas, in pursuit of their collective goal: to make space tourism a reality.Along the way, Schmidle weaves his relationship with his father -- a former fighter pilot and decorated war hero -- into the tragedies and triumphs that Branson's team confronts out in the Mojave desert as they design, build, and test-fly their private rocket ship.