The incredible story of spaceflight before the establishment of NASA. NASAs history is a familiar story, one that typically peaks with Neil Armstrong taking his small step on the Moon in 1969. But Americas space agency wasnt created in a vacuum. It was assembled from pre-existing parts, drawing together some of the best minds the non-Soviet world had to offer. In the 1930s, rockets were all the rage in Germany, the focus both of scientists hoping to fly into space and of the German armed forces, looking to circumvent the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. One of the key figures in this period was Wernher von Braun, an engineer who designed the rockets that became the devastating V-2. As the war came to its chaotic conclusion, von Braun escaped from the ruins of Nazi Germany, and was taken to America where he began developing missiles for the US Army. Meanwhile, the US Air Force was looking ahead to a time when men would fly in space, and test pilots like Neil Armstrong were flying cutting-edge, rocket-powered aircraft in the thin upper atmosphere. Breaking the Chains of Gravity tells the story of Americas nascent space program, its scientific advances, its personalities and the rivalries it caused between the various arms of the US military. At this point getting a man in space became a national imperative, leading to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, otherwise known as NASA.
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Product Details
Weight: 256g
Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
Publication Date: 30 Nov 2017
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication City/Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781472911247
About Amy Shira Teitel
Amy Shira Teitel is a lifelong space-history nerd who has turned her schoolgirl fascination with the Apollo missions into a career researching the minutiae of spaceflights history. Amy started writing for the public with her blog Vintage Space. She has also written for a number of other online and print publications including Discovery News Space Al-Jazeera The Guardian and Universe Today. She runs a thriving YouTube channel (also called Vintage Space) and has appeared on the Discovery channel the Military channel SyFy and the Science channel and she is a host on DNews Discovery Channels online daily news show. Amy was also an embedded journalist on the New Horizons team bringing the excitement of humanitys first mission to Pluto to the space-loving public. @astVintageSpace
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