LITMIR.BIZ

      FOR MEGAN ALANE GLORIA LEDESMA, WHO WILL LIVE IN A WHOLE NEW WORLD—GS

      PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

      John M. Fahey, Jr.,

       President & Chief Executive Officer

      Gilbert M. Grosvenor,

       Chairman of the Board

      Tim T. Kelly,

       President, Global Media Group

      John Q. Griffin,

       Executive Vice President; President, Publishing

      Nina D. Hoffman,

       Executive Vice President; President, Book Publishing Group

      Melina Gerosa Bellows,

       Executive Vice President, Children’s Publishing

      PREPARED BY THE BOOK DIVISION

      Nancy Laties Feresten,

       Vice President, Editor in Chief, Children’s Books

      Jonathan Halling,

       Design Director, Children’s Publishing

      Jennifer Emmett,

       Executive Editor, Reference & Solo Titles, Children’s Books

      Carl Mehler,

       Director of Maps

      R. Gary Colbert,

       Production Director

      Jennifer A. Thornton,

       Managing Editor

      STAFF FOR THIS BOOK

      Suzanne Fonda,

       Project Editor

      David M. Seager,

       Art Director

      Lori Epstein, Gloria Skurzynski,

       Illustrations Editors

      Priyanka Lamichhane,

       Associate Editor

      Grace Hill,

       Associate Managing Editor

      Lewis R. Bassford,

       Production Manager

      Susan Borke,

       Legal and Business Affairs

      Manufacturing and Quality Management

      Christopher A. Liedel,

       Chief Financial Officer

      Phillip L. Schlosser,

       Vice President

      Chris Brown,

       Technical Director

      Nicole Elliott, Rachel Faulise,

       Managers

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      The author is exceedingly grateful to rocket scientist Ed Skurzynski and to dedicated editor Suzanne Patrick Fonda and art director David Seager for their continuous support. Deep thanks also to Françoise Ulam; to David S. Nolan; Marc Rayman at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; Mike Wright and Betty Humphery at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center; Norman Chaffee, Roger Weiss, and Mike Gentry at NASA Johnson Space Center; Gwen Pitman at NASA Media Services; Linda S. Sandoval at Los Alamos National Laboratory; Suzanne DuBeau Rostek at Astrotech Space Operations, Inc; Valerie-Anne Lutz van Ammers at the American Philosophical Society Library; Andrew Ilin at Ad Astra; Roger G. Gilbertson at SpaceX; Jordin Kare at Laser-Motive; and, for her continuing inspiration to students, to France Anne Cordova, President of Purdue University and former NASA Chief Scientist, the youngest person and first woman to hold that position.