Chris Hadfield joins us for a post-Festival Special Event on November 15, 2025! Subscribe to our mailing list to be notified once tickets are on sale.

From the #1 bestselling author and astronaut Chris Hadfield, an edge-of-you-seat thriller set about China's secret role in the 1970s Space Race between the US and the USSR.

Houston, 1975. A new Apollo mission launches into orbit, on course to dock with a Russian Soyuz craft: three NASA astronauts and three cosmonauts, joining to celebrate a new dawn of Soviet-American cooperation. But as NASA Flight Controller Kaz Zemeckis listens in from Earth, a deadly accident changes everything.

Meanwhile, from a remote location in East Asia, the first Chinese spacecraft secretly launches. On board is China’s first astronaut, Fang Guojun, whose mission puts him on a collision course with the Apollo crew. As Kaz races against an enemy on the ground and for answers beyond the sky, the safety of the remaining crew hangs in the balance…

Full of intrigue and real history—including the fascinating story of Professor Tsien Hsue-shen, the “Father of Chinese Rocketry” and founder of China’s space program—Final Orbit accelerates to a thrilling conclusion that captures the beauty and terror of survival 270 miles above Earth, as could only be written by one of the most experienced astronauts alive.