More famous in his day than Einstein or Edison, Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945) was the father of rocketry and space flight, launching the world's first liquid-fuel rockets and the first powered vehicles to break the sound barrier. Supported by Charles Lindbergh and Harry Guggenheim, he invented the methods that to this day carry men to the moon and make jet planes fly. Yet he is the forgotten man of space age, ignored by his own government until the Germans demonstrated his priniples in WWII, when they instead usurped his patents. This is the definitive biography.

Fifty years of space exploration Foreword by Arthur C Clarke In October 1957 a metallic sphere the size of a basketball bleeped its way into orbit. It was called 'Sputnik'. From this modest beginning, an epic new adventure was born. In less than the span of a human lifetime we have explored the Moon and launched robot probes to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and far beyond. Space explores the major themes of rocket exploration, past, present and future, and celebrates the first half-century of space exploration. Specially selected images recall an age when giant rockets were the last word in modernity, and silver-suited astronauts were household names. Now we are preparing for a historic return to the Moon in the coming decade, and making serious plans to explore Mars. What awaits us in the next 50 years of space exploration? Contents: From literature to launch day - Science fiction predicts rockets and space exploration The Heavens and the Earth - Experimental missiles and satellites inspire the politicians Selling the Space Age - Consumer culture absorbs the romance of rockets Red Star in Orbit - Russian triumphs and tragedies in orbit, and on earth Machine Ambassadors - Robot probes explore Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn The Way Ahead - Do we have a long-term future in space?

A lavishly illustrated study of the human experience of space exploration draws on the contributions of forty international space explorers, including John Glenn, Sally Ride, Aleksei Leonov, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, Scott Carpenter, and Valentina Tereshkova.

Covers all major topics in astronomy and space science and includes concise biographies of leading astronomers, accounts of national space programs, and descriptions of significant celestial objects and the tools astronomers use to study them