Book Review: Breaking the chains of gravity

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heinerv
Posts: 475
Joined: Fri Aug 13, 2004 3:21 pm
Real Name: Vic Heiner

Book Review: Breaking the chains of gravity

Post by heinerv »

Here's and interesting book detailing the history of rockets up to the creation of NASA. The author is Amy Shira Teitel and the book is in the Hennepin library system.

It relates some of the weird experiments in 20's and 30's especially in Germany. It covers the development of the V2 and the aftermath and the story of how the US got von Braun. The chapters covering the mid 50's were interesting to me since I was in high school at the time, especially when Sputnik flew. Von Braun had warned that we needed to get the first satellite up, but was ignored and the task was given to the Navy and Vanguard which failed on the first attempt. Read the book to see all the names given to the satellite like Flopnik.

It made me wonder how history would have been different if Explorer 1 had been launched before Sputnik.

The last chapter shows how NASA was born and how Eisenhower bypassed the military arms which were all vying for the lead to create the civilian agency.

Good read for history.
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