Space Pioneers in Their Own Words


Book Description

Ninety space pioneers describe their experiences while working on space research and exploration from the 1940s through the space shuttle program. Some of these men and women were well known as astronauts or members of Mission Control for Apollo flights to the Moon, and some were minor players in the programs-people like lab technicians, weather forecasters, welders, and helicopter pilots who supported rocket tests. Their stories disclose events and behind-the-scenes details available nowhere else. They reveal the human experiences of an era that extended from the launch of this planet's first "artificial moon" to routine shuttle missions carrying people and supplies between Earth and the International Space Station. Drawn from the archives of the oral history program supported by the International Space Hall of Fame Foundation, the excerpts describe funny, frightening, and fascinating episodes. They paint the hues of human experience on the canvas of technological achievements. In this book, for the first time, extensive portions of the New Mexico Museum of Space History and International Space Hall of Fame's oral history collection are available to the general public. Supplemented with photographs and annotated for historical context, this presentation offers a unique glimpse into humanity's struggles to become a spacefaring race. That perspective forms an important foundation for the new era of commercial spaceflight and interplanetary exploration.




How We Got to the Moon


Book Description

Prologue by Konrad Dannenberg -- Hermann Oberth : the father of space travel -- The battle of the formulae -- From theory to experimentation -- Peenemunde : a scientific mobilization -- How the A-4 rocket became the V-2 -- Coming to America : Operation Paperclip -- The space age begins! -- Willy Ley rallies the nation for space -- Wernher von Braun : the Columbus of space -- Krafft Ehricke's extraterrestrial imperative.




Pioneers in Astronomy and Space Exploration


Book Description

The pioneers of astronomy and space exploration have advanced humankind’s understanding of the universe. These individuals include earthbound theorists such as Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galileo, as well as those who put their lives on the line travelling into the great unknown. Readers chronicle the lives of individuals positioned at the vanguard of astronomical discovery, laying the groundwork for space exploration past, present, and yet to come.




Space Dogs


Book Description

Back when scientists knew nothing about space travel, back when rockets were new, a group of Russian cosmonauts rode rockets to the edge of space and into earth orbit. These pioneer space travelers were dogs, space dogs of the Soviet space program.For 15 years, space dogs occupied the world stage, blazing trails as the first astronauts.Their flights taught scientists how living beings reacted to rocket travel and tested the equipment that would be used for human space flight. The age of the space dog extended from the first launch in 1951 until the final, record-breaking dog flight in 1966. Some dogs won world-wide fame. Most of them, however, worked-and died-in obscurity. They were all pioneers of space travel. And no one has ever told their story. Until now.Space Dogs dramatizes the training of the dogs, the harrowing early flights, the tragic accidents, the fame that came to the program after the launch of Laika in Sputnik 2, and the final flights leading up to the first manned flight.Space Dogs includes never-before-published photos from the archives of Novosti, the Russian News Agency.




Pioneers of Space


Book Description

Now with an Historical Afterword by Ron Miller Featured in Ron Millers _The Conquest of Space Book Series.Ó Pioneers of Space (1949) was later reincarnated almost word-for-word as the "non-fiction" Inside the Space Ships, one of the books largely responsible for the UFO craze of the 1950s and 60s. Ghost-written by Adamski acolyte Lucy McGinnis, this novel contains some of the most inept scientific ideas imaginable. In the early 1950s, "Professor" George Adamski laid the groundwork for all subsequent UFO contactees. In Pioneers of Space he created many of the incidents and qualities he later attributed to the "actual" inhabitants of Venus, Mars and Saturn he later claimed to have met. In addition, we get a look at some of the strange "science" this self-proclaimed astronomer believed in. "Facts" such as there must be oxygen in space otherwise the sun could not burn... At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).




Sally Ride: Space Pioneer


Book Description

A biography of the first woman in space, discussing her childhood, career as an astronaut, and place in history.




From Astronautics to Cosmonautics


Book Description

Two pioneers of space exploration, Robert Esnault-Pelterie and Ary Sternfeld, introduced the words 'astronautics' and 'cosmonautics, ' respectively, into the scientific language. The origin of the term 'astronautics' is well documented. In contrast, the history of the word 'cosmonautics' remains poorly known. Ary Sternfeld is also largely forgotten. The fiftieth anniversary of the breakthrough to space, celebrated in 2007, makes it especially appropriate to remember those visionaries who paved the way to cosmos. The book tells the stories of 'astronautics' and 'cosmonautics' and describes a most unusual life journey of Ary Sternfeld




Mercury Rising: John Glenn, John Kennedy, and the New Battleground of the Cold War


Book Description

A riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race. If the United States couldn’t catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War—a perilous time when the Soviet Union built the wall in Berlin, tested nuclear bombs more destructive than any in history, and beat the United States to every major milestone in space. The race to the heavens seemed a race for survival—and America was losing. On February 20, 1962, when John Glenn blasted into orbit aboard Friendship 7, his mission was not only to circle the planet; it was to calm the fears of the free world and renew America’s sense of self-belief. Mercury Rising re-creates the tension and excitement of a flight that shifted the momentum of the space race and put the United States on the path to the moon. Drawing on new archival sources, personal interviews, and previously unpublished notes by Glenn himself, Mercury Rising reveals how the astronaut’s heroics lifted the nation’s hopes in what Kennedy called the "hour of maximum danger."




In Their Own Words


Book Description

Amelia Earhart’s prominence in American aviation during the 1930s obscures a crucial point: she was but one of a closely knit community of women pilots. Although the women were well known in the profession and widely publicized in the press at the time, they are largely overlooked today. Like Earhart, they wrote extensively about aviation and women’s causes, producing an absorbing record of the life of women fliers during the emergence and peak of the Golden Age of Aviation (1925–1940). Earhart and her contemporaries, however, were only the most recent in a long line of women pilots whose activities reached back to the earliest days of aviation. These women, too, wrote about aviation, speaking out for new and progressive technology and its potential for the advancement of the status of women. With those of their more recent counterparts, their writings form a long, sustained text that documents the maturation of the airplane, aviation, and women’s growing desire for equality in American society. In Their Own Words takes up the writings of eight women pilots as evidence of the ties between the growth of American aviation and the changing role of women. Harriet Quimby (1875–1912), Ruth Law (1887–1970), and the sisters Katherine and Marjorie Stinson (1893–1977; 1896–1975) came to prominence in the years between the Wright brothers and World War I. Earhart (1897–1937), Louise Thaden (1905–1979), and Ruth Nichols (1901–1960) were the voices of women in aviation during the Golden Age of Aviation. Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001), the only one of the eight who legitimately can be called an artist, bridges the time from her husband’s 1927 flight through the World War II years and the coming of the Space Age. Each of them confronts issues relating to the developing technology and possibilities of aviation. Each speaks to the importance of assimilating aviation into daily life. Each details the part that women might—and should—play in advancing aviation. Each talks about how aviation may enhance women’s participation in contemporary American society, making their works significant documents in the history of American culture.




Higher, Faster, Longer


Book Description

Since she was a girl in a Superman cape jumping off the family barn and stargazing from the slopes of Taos Mountain, Wally Funk has kept going higher, faster, and longer every time she has seen an opportunity. In college, Wally soared through the aviation program, landing herself a flight instructor position after graduation. From there, she set a record in astronaut testing which she passed with flying colors. The scuttling of the Mercury 13 program didn't stop Wally, who used her dreams to fuel an adventure-studded life. Traveling the world, shattering glass ceilings, and always keeping one eye on the stars, Wally relentlessly and joyfully reached higher, flew faster, and traveled longer on her way to space. For the first time in her own words, here is the stellar story of a truly unique American space pioneer.