Aiming for the Stars The Dreamers and Doers of the Space Age

by Crouch, Tom D.

• ISBN13: 9781560988335
• ISBN10: 1560988339
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-08-17
• Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press

Summary

Aiming for the Stars explores the motivations, goals, trials, and triumphs of the people who pioneered space exploration from the sixteenth century to the modern era. Tom D. Crouch describes space travel's emergence from the pages of science fiction into the laboratories of twentieth-century rocketeers. Linking individual obsessions and achievements with the political events and social currents that surrounded them, the book offers a wide-ranging view of the attempt to explore the final frontier.

Author Biography

Tom D. Crouch is senior curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and the author of numerous award-winning books on aerospace history

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
List of Tables	x
Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Prologue: Spaceport!	1	(9)
A Plurality of Worlds	10	(9)
The Call of the Cosmos	19	(20)
Raketenrummel	39	(20)
An American Dreamer	59	(13)
Vergeltungswaffe!	72	(20)
``Our Germans''	92	(24)
Selling Space Flight	116	(17)
Fellow Travelers	133	(18)
This New Ocean	151	(16)
Racing to the Moon	167	(17)
The Giant Leap: Gemini	184	(15)
The Apollo Era	199	(17)
Men from Earth	216	(19)
Salyut and Skylab: Rooms with a View	235	(14)
The Shuttle Era	249	(16)
At Home in Orbit	265	(11)
Robot Servants and Explorers	276	(25)
Outward Bound	301	(14)
Notes	315	(10)
Selected Bibliography	325	(6)
Index	331