Book dossier

History of rocketry & space travel

by Wernher von Braun, Frederick I. Ordway III

From Book Cover: This comprehensive, authoritative, and highly acclaimed history now has been updated and enlarged to cover all the latest developments and discoveries in space science and exploration. These include the Apollo manned landings on the moon, the probing by Russia and the United States of Venus and Mars, the voyages of Pioneers 10 and 11 past Jupiter to the outer reaches of the Solar System, the American Mariner 10 flight to Mercury, the Skylab missions, as well as the exciting applications of Earth Resources Technology Satellites in monitoring and managing this planet's resources. International in scope and illustrated with more than 350 photographs and drawings, this volume ranges from ancient Babylonian and Greek concepts of the universe through the developments of primitive rockets by Chinese, Arabian, and Medieval European experimenters to the breathtakingly complex interplanetary missions of today. It reviews the work of three great pioneers of the early part of the twentieth century - America's Goddard, Germany's Oberth, and Russia's Tsiolkovsky - as well as the accomplishments of Esnault-Pelterie in France, Isaac Lubbock's work on liquid propellants in Great Britain, and the development of the Russian "Katyusha". It details the experiments of von Braun and Walter R Dornberger in German before World War II, and gives a full account of the work of their development team on the V-2 rocket at the Peenemunde Center. The dramatic story of the German scientists' surrender to American forces in 1945, as well as their eventual accomplishments at the Army's Redstone Arsenal and subsequently NASA's Marshal Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is also told at first hand. Here are interesting insights into the United States' rocket experiments during World War II and the reasons behind the near-disastrous delay in America's long-range missile research and satellite programs - which went into high gear only after Russia, had begun flight-testing her own long-range rockets that a few years later enabled her to open the space age with the famous Sputnik. Less-familiar but highly significant aspects of our many-faceted space effort, from its beginning with FDR's National Defense Research Committee, are disclosed and documented. The authors trace the development of many specific rockets and missiles, ranging from the Bazooka to huge intercontinental ballistic missiles and anti-ballistic missiles. From an unequaled base of direct knowledge reinforced by exhaustive research, Dr. von Braun and Professor Ordway assess the meaning for the future of man's epochal leap into space. They survey the current status of space programs in the United States and Russia, as well as in all the other major nations, and forecast their probable direction. Tables, providing valuable rocketry and spacecraft data, and an extensive bibliography are included.