After Germany was defeated in World War II, their German rocket scientists found work in America and Russia. The primary rocket scientist, Wernher Von Braun, chose moving to America, where he and fellow German engineers constructed rockets for defense purposes.

Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program, but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoir of academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap. Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow. Thirty years later, he was deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the mysterious "Chief Designer" Sergey Korolev. Chertok's 60-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People. In these writings, spread over four volumes (volumes two through four are forthcoming), academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a society's quest to explore the cosmos. This book was edited by Asif Siddiqi, a historian of Russian space exploration, and General Tom Stafford contributed a foreword touching upon his significant work with the Russians on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Overall, this book is an engaging read while also contributing much new material to the literature about the Soviet space program.

This is a new release of the original 1960 edition.

While the glories and tragedies of the space shuttle make headlines and move the nation, the story of the shuttle forms an inseparabe part of a lesser-known but no less important drama—the search for a reusable single-stage-to-orbit rocket. Here an award-winning student of space science, Andrew J. Butrica, examines the long and tangled history of this ambitious concept, from it first glimmerings in the 1920s, when technicians dismissed it as unfeasible, to its highly expensive heyday in the midst of the Cold War, when conservative-backed government programs struggled to produce an operational flight vehicle. Butrica finds a blending of far-sighted engineering and heavy-handed politics. To the first and oldest idea—that of the reusable rocket-powered single-stage-to-orbit vehicle—planners who belonged to what President Eisenhower referred to as the military-industrial complex.added experimental ("X"), "aircraft-like" capabilties and, eventually, a "faster, cheaper, smaller" managerial approach. Single Stage to Orbit traces the interplay of technology, corporate interest, and politics, a combination that well served the conservative space agenda and ultimately triumphed—not in the realization of inexpensive, reliable space transport—but in a vision of space militarization and commercialization that would appear settled United States policy in the early twenty-first century. -- D. M. Ashford

Contains papers presented at the Air Force Historical Foundation Symposium, held at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on September 21-22, 1995. Topics addressed are: Pt. 1, The Formative Years, 1945-1961; Pt. 2, Mission Development and Exploitation Since 1961; and Pt. 3, Military Space Today and Tomorrow. Includes notes, abbreviations & acronyms, an index, and photographs.

"Preludes to U.S. Space-Launch Vehicle Technology is devoted primarily to military hardware and traces the evolution of missile technology from the 1920s through the 1970s, when the Minuteman III became operational. Hunley discusses individual innovations, technology transfer, management systems, and the organizations that were involved in the research and development of a wide range of rockets and missiles, including the German V-2, Redstone, Atlas, Thor, Jupiter, Titan I and II, and Polaris. He also humanizes the subject through numerous anecdotes and sketches of such fascinating individuals as Robert H. Goddard, Werner von Braun, Bernard Schriever, and "Red" Raborn, among others."--BOOK JACKET.

The first—and only—source to integrate the multiple disciplines and professions exploring the many ways people interact with the natural and designed environments in which we live. Comprising more than 250 informative entries, The Encyclopedia of Human Ecology examines the interdisciplinary and complex topic of human ecology. Knowledge gathered from disciplines that study individuals and groups is blended with information about the environment from the fields of family science, geography, anthropology, urban planning, and environmental science. At the same time, professions intended to enhance individual and family life—marriage and family therapy, clinical psychology, social work, dietetic and other health professions—are represented alongside those concerned with the preservation, conservation, and management of the environment and its resources. How rampant are eating disorders among our youth? Are AIDS educational programs effective? What problems do adolescents transitioning into adulthood encounter? Here, four leading scholars in the field have assembled a team of top-tier psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and other experts to explore these and hundreds of other timely issues.

This scholarly study of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center places the institution in social, political, scientific, and technological context. It traces the evolution of Marshall, located in Huntsville, Alabama, from its origins as an Army missile development organization to its status in 1990 as one of the most diversified of NASA's field Centers. Chapters discuss military rocketry programs in Germany and the United States, Apollo-Saturn, Skylab, Space Shuttle, Spacelab, the Space Station and various scientific and technical projects including the Hubble Space Telescope. It sheds light not only on the history of space technology, science, and exploration, but also on the Cold War, federal politics, and complex organizations.