Book excerpt: Bob Mahoney has vividly portrayed the pressures, the dedication, and the fabled resourcefulness ofthe Mission Control Center team. His book comes alive because of his own personal experience and expertise to give us a 'Clancy-like' thriller of a story.Glynn S. Lunney, Former Apollo Flight Director* * * * *A work of fiction initially conceived more than twenty years ago, Damned to Heaven immerses the reader in a fast-paced world of real-time shuttle and space station operations, weaving an uncannily realistic storyline that taps the underlying yearning for humankind's continued exploration of the solar system.Like many, William Francis Drake grew up on the exhilarating promise of the early space program. Now a flight director in Mission Control, he must admit that his space program has fallen far short of that youthful promise. The bureaucracy of the present has eroded his passion for the future. Yet a new hope has been born-the President has formulated a grand but controversial blueprint for solar system exploration and exploitation. This new program's first critical milestone, however, involves unfinished business-completion of the ailing International Space Station Alpha.Into this technical and political maelstrom a crisis descends. During one of the final ISS assembly missions, orbital debris strikes space shuttle Discovery, compromising its cabin and rendering a successful reentry dubious. Flight Director Drake and his team must swiftly advise the seven-person crew to either attempt reentry with their damaged thermal protection system or dock the dying Discovery to Alpha (already supporting a three-person crew) in the hope the ground can launch a rescue before the Station'sdegraded systems reach their limits.Drake's struggle to retain his passion for spaceflight has suddenly become a matter of life and death-and even through the crisis, his battle with the bureaucracy rages on.