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qatsiBook Review: Breaking the Chains of Gravity - The Story of Spaceflight before NASA, by Amy Shira Teitel
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department", says Wernher von Braun
This is what I like about the book sale: an unexpected but potentially interesting find. This was an interesting book, with quite a lot of background beginning in 1920s and 1930s Germany, documenting inter-war research and amateur enthusiasm for rocket propulsion. Some of this is strikingly basic, such as accidents caused by misfiring or accidental ignition. Teitel's portrayal of von Braun is generally rather sympathetic, suggesting that it was rocket science that drove him rather than military objectives; but to say the least, that sits uneasily with some of his behaviour, both during and after the war. The story then moves to the USA, with various military and civilian agencies working on various related technologies and themes such as super- and hypersonic flight, human endurance and exposure to high acceleration. In the context of preparations for the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58, US bureaucracy (not entirely unrelated to the awkward position occupied by von Braun, though also based on rivalry between the different military services and civilian agencies) was eclipsed by the launch of Sputnik, and the book concludes with the formation of NASA in late 1958.
The book does, however, have flaws: although I discovered that there is a Newbury in Wiltshire, for example, within a few pages, I discovered that The Hague is in Belgium, which seemed even less likely. The description of the allied D-Day forces as "English, American and Canadian" grates, not only because of the frequent American conflation of English and British, but also because there were nationals from other occupied countries in Europe, and the wider British Empire, present additionally. These do somewhat reduce confidence in the accuracy of matters on which I have less knowledge. The other, rather obvious, omission or misrepresentation, is that the book plainly isn't a history of spaceflight before NASA, but rather, a history of American spaceflight. There's no discussion of the history of Soviet spaceflight at all prior to the Sputnik launch. I can accept that there may be difficulty in researching and accessing documents on the subject but it does feel rather swept under the carpet, as if Sputnik emerged fully formed from a vacuum. But, within these constraints, it's a decent read.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department", says Wernher von Braun
Tom Lehrer, Wernher von Braun
This is what I like about the book sale: an unexpected but potentially interesting find. This was an interesting book, with quite a lot of background beginning in 1920s and 1930s Germany, documenting inter-war research and amateur enthusiasm for rocket propulsion. Some of this is strikingly basic, such as accidents caused by misfiring or accidental ignition. Teitel's portrayal of von Braun is generally rather sympathetic, suggesting that it was rocket science that drove him rather than military objectives; but to say the least, that sits uneasily with some of his behaviour, both during and after the war. The story then moves to the USA, with various military and civilian agencies working on various related technologies and themes such as super- and hypersonic flight, human endurance and exposure to high acceleration. In the context of preparations for the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58, US bureaucracy (not entirely unrelated to the awkward position occupied by von Braun, though also based on rivalry between the different military services and civilian agencies) was eclipsed by the launch of Sputnik, and the book concludes with the formation of NASA in late 1958.
The book does, however, have flaws: although I discovered that there is a Newbury in Wiltshire, for example, within a few pages, I discovered that The Hague is in Belgium, which seemed even less likely. The description of the allied D-Day forces as "English, American and Canadian" grates, not only because of the frequent American conflation of English and British, but also because there were nationals from other occupied countries in Europe, and the wider British Empire, present additionally. These do somewhat reduce confidence in the accuracy of matters on which I have less knowledge. The other, rather obvious, omission or misrepresentation, is that the book plainly isn't a history of spaceflight before NASA, but rather, a history of American spaceflight. There's no discussion of the history of Soviet spaceflight at all prior to the Sputnik launch. I can accept that there may be difficulty in researching and accessing documents on the subject but it does feel rather swept under the carpet, as if Sputnik emerged fully formed from a vacuum. But, within these constraints, it's a decent read.