Far from being pointless or posturing, such devices serve as a reminder that the novel is not simply a narrative, it is also text, and that language can have an agenda apart from story.

At Mir, during a re-docking test with the Progress M-34 cargo freighter, the Progress freighter collided with the Spektr module and solar arrays of the Mir space station. Space Shuttle Challenger breaks up during its 1986 launch resulting in the death of all seven crew members.

It is not in VanderMeer’s game plan, however, to let us get too cosy, and as the novel progresses it begins to shed its archetypes, fragmenting into a series of variously interconnected accounts from different narrators. In the last two minutes of the mission, during Space Shuttle Columbia's final approach to the Edwards AFB runway, hydrazine fuel leaked onto hot surfaces of two of the three onboard auxiliary power units (APU) in the aft compartment of the shuttle and caught fire. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

It was found that stray electric current in the defective cabling network triggered a false command to pressurize the oxygen tank until it eventually ruptured.

Gemini 7 orbiting 185 miles (298 km) directly over Missile Row witnessed the event and reported they could clearly see the momentary exhaust plume before shutdown. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. Also not included are alleged unreported Soviet space accidents, which are considered fringe theories by a majority of historians. During launch, the Saturn V second stage experienced a potentially serious malfunction when the center of its five engines shut down two minutes early.

During debris recovery efforts following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, Forest Service employee Charles Krenek of Lufkin, Texas and Pilot Jules F.Lyakhov determined that they were not, in fact, out of alignment, and asserted that the problem was caused by conflicting signals picked up by the alignment sensors caused by solar glare. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. For this reader at least, this kind of formal innovation is pure catnip, an indication that as a mode of literary expression the novel is still vigorous, still developing and still important.

Or at least that’s their intention, creating instead a hell paved with the results of mad, bad science. It’s a symbol of every monolithic power that renders humanity itself so insignificant on its list of concerns that fighting it seems both pointless and inescapable, if only so that we can feel we actually meant something in our brief lives. Needs to be read slowly, in small portions, but it will stretch your mind in ways you didn't know it could go.I picked up Dead Astronauts a while back because I really enjoyed Vandermeer's Southern Reach Trilogy and a few folks had glowing recommendations of DA, saying if I liked the trilogy then I would really dig this book too. I did really enjoy Borne, but I feel the author is doing well based on marketing now than quality work. Had a further short shut down two engines, Columbia would have ditched in the ocean, although the crew could have possibly bailed out. It’s a moment that brings to mind the queasy reality of the conscience-free leadership we find ourselves under day after day, where the phrase keeps being repeated, “The cruelty is the point.