Commissioned on the occasion of its 75th Anniversary, here is the fascinating historical account of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics -- and its predecessor organizations, the American Rocket Society and The Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences -- and the significant contributions each has made to the evolution of flight. From the early struggles to create and distinguish aeronautics as a distinct profession, through the technological necessities brought on by two world wars, to the incredible advances spawned by the Space Age, this narrative covers it all in a highly readable, thoroughly researched way. Reading like an aeronautical and astronautical whos who, it is also the amazing story of the organizations founders, leaders and members -- visionary individuals and dedicated engineers advancing theories and technologies in a profession that has forever changed society and shaped everyday life as we know it.

A pathbreaking history of the regulatory foundations of America's twentieth-century aerial preeminence. Today, the federal government possesses unparalleled authority over the atmosphere of the United States. Yet when the Wright Brothers inaugurated the air age on December 17, 1903, the sky was an unregulated frontier. As increasing numbers of aircraft threatened public safety in subsequent decades and World War I accentuated national security concerns about aviation, the need for government intervention became increasingly apparent. But where did authority over the airplane reside within America's federalist system? And what should US policy look like for a device that could readily travel over physical barriers and political borders? In Sovereign Skies, Sean Seyer provides a radically new understanding of the origins of American aviation policy in the first decades of the twentieth century. Drawing on the concept of mental models from cognitive science, regime theory from political science, and extensive archival sources, Seyer situates the development, spread, and institutionalization of a distinct American regulatory idea within its proper international context. He illustrates how a relatively small group of bureaucrats, military officers, industry leaders, and engineers drew upon previous regulatory schemes and international principles in their struggle to define government's relationship to the airplane. In so doing, he challenges the current domestic-centered narrative within the literature and delineates the central role of the airplane in the reinterpretation of federal power under the commerce clause. By placing the origins of aviation policy within a broader transnational context, Sovereign Skies highlights the influence of global regimes on US policy and demonstrates the need for continued engagement in world affairs. Filling a major gap in the historiography of aviation, it will be of interest to readers of aviation, diplomatic, and legal history, as well as regulatory policy and American political development.

When physicist Robert Goddard, whose career was inspired by H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds, published "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes," the response was electric. Newspaper headlines across the country announced, "Modern Jules Verne Invents Rocket to Reach Moon," while people from around the world, including two World War I pilots, volunteered as pioneers in space exploration. Though premature (Goddard's rocket, alas, was only imagined), the episode demonstrated not only science's general popularity but also its intersection with interwar popular and commercial culture. In that intersection, the stories that inspired Goddard and others became a recognizable genre: science fiction. Astounding Wonder explores science fiction's emergence in the era's "pulps," colorful magazines that shouted from the newsstands, attracting an extraordinarily loyal and active audience. Pulps invited readers not only to read science fiction but also to participate in it, joining writers and editors in celebrating a collective wonder for and investment in the potential of science. But in conjuring fantastic machines, travel across time and space, unexplored worlds, and alien foes, science fiction offered more than rousing adventure and romance. It also assuaged contemporary concerns about nation, gender, race, authority, ability, and progress—about the place of ordinary individuals within modern science and society—in the process freeing readers to debate scientific theories and implications separate from such concerns. Readers similarly sought to establish their worth and place outside the pulps. Organizing clubs and conventions and producing their own magazines, some expanded science fiction's community and created a fan subculture separate from the professional pulp industry. Others formed societies to launch and experiment with rockets. From debating relativity and the use of slang in the future to printing purple fanzines and calculating the speed of spaceships, fans' enthusiastic industry revealed the tensions between popular science and modern science. Even as it inspired readers' imagination and activities, science fiction's participatory ethos sparked debates about amateurs and professionals that divided the worlds of science fiction in the 1930s and after.

The Rocket Lab: Maurice Zucrow, Purdue University, and America’s Race to Space focuses on the golden era of space exploration between 1946 and 1966, specifically the life and times of Purdue University’s Dr. Maurice J. Zucrow, a pioneering teacher and researcher in aerospace engineering. Zucrow taught America’s first university course in jet and rocket propulsion, wrote the field’s first textbook, and established the country’s first educational Rocket Lab. He was part of a small circle of innovators who transformed Purdue into the country’s largest engineering university, which became a cradle of astronauts. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, The Rocket Lab weaves between the local and national, drawing in rival universities, especially Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Caltech. Also covered is Zucrow’s role in the national project system of research and development through World War II and the Cold War. At Aerojet, he was one of the country’s original project engineers, dedicated to scientific-technical expertise and the stepwise approach. He made vanguard power plant contributions to the Northrop Flying Wing, as well as the Corporal, Nike, and Atlas missiles, among others. Zucrow’s work in propulsion helped to improve the country’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and space launchers, and as a teacher, he educated the first generation of aerospace engineers. This book elevates Zucrow and the central role he played in getting the United States to space.

French-born and self-trained civil engineer Octave Chanute designed America's two largest stockyards, created innovative and influential structures such as the Kansas City Bridge over the previously "unbridgeable" Missouri River, and was a passionate aviation pioneer whose collaborative approach to aeronautical engineering problems encouraged other experimenters, including the Wright brothers. Drawing on rich archival material and exclusive family sources, Locomotive to Aeromotive is the first detailed examination of Chanute's life and his immeasurable contributions to engineering and transportation, from the ground transportation revolution of the mid-nineteenth century to the early days of aviation. Aviation researcher and historian Simine Short brings to light in colorful detail many previously overlooked facets of Chanute's professional and personal life. In the late nineteenth century, few considered engineering as a profession on par with law or medicine, but Chanute devoted much time and energy to the newly established professional societies that were created to set standards and serve the needs of civil engineers. Though best known for his aviation work, he became a key figure in the opening of the American continent by laying railroad tracks and building bridges, experiences that later gave him the engineering knowledge to build the first stable aircraft structure. Chanute also introduced a procedure to treat wooden railroad ties with an antiseptic that increased the wood’s lifespan in the tracks. Establishing the first commercial plants, he convinced railroad men that it was commercially feasible to make money by spending money on treating ties to conserve natural resources. He next introduced the date nail to help track the age and longevity of railroad ties. A versatile engineer, Chanute was known as a kind and generous colleague during his career. Using correspondence and other materials not previously available to scholars and biographers, Short covers Chanute's formative years in antebellum America as well as his experiences traveling from New Orleans to New York, his apprenticeship on the Hudson River Railroad, and his early engineering successes. His multiple contributions to railway expansion, bridge building, and wood preservation established his reputation as one of the nation's most successful and distinguished civil engineers. Instead of retiring, he utilized his experiences and knowledge as a bridge builder in the development of motorless flight. Through the reflections of other engineers, scientists, and pioneers in various fields who knew him, Short characterizes Chanute as a man who believed in fostering and supporting people who were willing to learn. This well-researched biography cements Chanute's place as a preeminent engineer and mentor in the history of transportation in the United States and the development of the airplane.

Startling Innovations. Cool Space Ships. Evil Alien Butt Blasted to Smithereens! Outpost Attack! Gateway HD 36951 lies in ruins. All survivors slaughtered. A single, truncated message sent back to Earth. Something very bad indeed is afoot, and the A.S.S. Vorpal Blade (reanuclear submarine converted to warp-drive space ship) is sent to investigate. But the ferocious, voracious enemy Dreen wait for no man (or other carbon-based lifeform), and the Blade and her crew are soon the only hope for an alien species pushed to the brink of extinction. Turn back and abandon a new ally or face a heavily-armed Dreen destroyer head on. For the Blade's rough-and-ready crew, it's no contest. And now, with an infusion of technical know-how from humanity's new ally, chaos itself has become a weapon! New York Times and USA Today multiple best-seller John Ringo joins with NASA and DOD consultant Travis S. Taylor ¾ author of Warp Speed and The Quantum Connection At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). "If Tom Clancy were writing SF, it would read much like John Ringo." ¾Philadelphia Weekly Press on New York Times multiple best-seller John Ringo. "[T]his thoroughly enjoyable ride should appeal to techno-thriller fans as well as to military SF buffs." ¾Publishers Weekly on John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor's Into the Looking Glass.

Elsie MacGill achieved many firsts in science and engineering at a time when women were considered to be inferior in the sciences. In 1923, at the age of nineteen, she became the first woman to attend engineering classes at the University of Toronto. She was the first woman in North America to hold a degree in aeronautical engineering and the first woman aircraft designer in the world. As chief engineer for the Canadian Car and Foundry Company she oversaw the production of the Hawker Hurricane, and designed a series of modifications to equip the plain for cold weather flying. Her Maple Leaf trainer may still be the only plane ever to be completely designed by a woman. And she did all this while suffering from polio. In this biography we learn that she supervised 4500 workers and produced about 1450 Hawker Hurricanes by the end of WWII. Elsie was a popular heroine of her time, inspiring the comic book "Queen of the Hurricanes" in the 1940s. In later life she became a powerful feminist activist, advocating for the rights of women and children.

This National Association of Rocketry handbook covers designing and building your first model rocket to launching and recovery techniques, and setting up a launch area for competition.

Curator and space historian at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum delivers a brilliantly nuanced biography of controversial space pioneer Wernher von Braun. Chief rocket engineer of the Third Reich and one of the fathers of the U.S. space program, Wernher von Braun is a source of consistent fascination. Glorified as a visionary and vilified as a war criminal, he was a man of profound moral complexities, whose intelligence and charisma were coupled with an enormous and, some would say, blinding ambition. Based on new sources, Neufeld's biography delivers a meticulously researched and authoritative portrait of the creator of the V-2 rocket and his times, detailing how he was a man caught between morality and progress, between his dreams of the heavens and the earthbound realities of his life.