The Last Shuttle by Tom Glover *

The Last Shuttle by Tom Glover is a 70-page, first-contact novella with as pretty good "amateur manually lands the Space Shuttle" sequence.

Awarded the Sci Fi Parsec Award in honor Han Solo's claim that he "made the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs." This small story qualified twice: once on the first page for a "geosynchronous orbit 1,000 miles above the earth's surface." The calculation of the correct altitude is a high-school physics problem or available from Wikipedia. And later with the undistinguished assertion, "By 32, he earned his doctorate ... distinguishing himself within the scientific ranks of NASA." This is a bottom-half-of-the-class record, since the median age is closer to 31.