This is a new release of the original 1960 edition.

This classic on space travel was first published in 1953, when interplanetary space flight was considered science fiction by most of those who considered it at all. Here the German-born scientist Wernher von Braun detailed what he believed were the problems and possibilities inherent in a projected expedition to Mars. Today von Braun is recognized as the person most responsible for laying the groundwork for public acceptance of America's space program. When President Bush directed NASA in 1989 to prepare plans for an orbiting space station, lunar research bases, and human exploration of Mars, he was largely echoing what von Braun proposed in The Mars Project.

For all being interested in astronautics, this translation of Hermann Oberth’s classic work is a truly historic event. Readers will be impressed with this extraordinary pioneer and his incredible achievement. In a relatively short work of 1923, Hermann Oberth laid down the mathematical laws governing rocketry and spaceflight, and he offered practical design considerations based on those laws.

This is the first book in the literature to cover the development and testing practices for liquid rocket engines in Russia and the former Soviet Union.Combustion instability represents one of the most challenging probelms in the development of propulsion engines. A famous example is the F-1 engines for the first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicles in the Apollo project. More than 2000 full engine tests and a vast number of design modifications were conducted to cure the instability problem.This book contains first-hand information about the testing and development practices for treating liquid rocket combustion-instability problems in Russia and the former Soviet Union. It covers more than 50 years of research, with an emphasis placed on the advances made since 1970.The book was prepared by a former R&D director of the Research Institute of Chemical Engineering, NIICHIMMASH, the largest liquid rocket testing center in the world, and has been carefully edited by three well-known experts in the field.

This book describes the technology, history, and future of rocket planes. Michel van Pelt journies into this exciting world, examining the exotic concepts and actual flying vehicles that have been devised over the last hundred years. He recounts the history of rocket airplanes, from the early pioneers who attached simple rockets onto their wooden glider airplanes to the modern world of high-tech research vehicles. The author visits museums where rare examples of early rocket planes are kept and modern laboratories where future spaceplanes are being developed. He explains the technology in an easily understandable way, describing the various types of rocket airplanes and looking at the possibilities for the future. Michel van Pelt considers future spaceplanes, presenting various modern concepts and developments. He describes the development from cutting edge research via demonstrator vehicles to operational use. He also evaluates the replacement of the Space Shuttle with a seemingly old-fashioned capsule system, the parallel developments in suborbital spaceplanes such as SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo, piloted versus automatic flight, and related developments in airliners and military aircraft.

Liquid propellant rocket engines have propelled all the manned space flights, all the space vehicles flying to the planets or deep space, virtually all satellites, and the majority of medium range or intercontinental range ballistic missiles.