READING ASSIGNMENTS

"ASTRONAUTICS BOOK 1. DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE"
Ted Spitzmiller

The second half of the semester will dedicated to the Final Frontier of Space itself.

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PRE-WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

2 - On the Shoulders of Giants (selected pages 15-25)
The First Rockets (pp 15-16)
What Lies Beyond (p 16)
Jules Verne (p 17)
Konstantine Tiolkovsky (pp 17-18)
Robert Goddard (pp 18-22)
Herman Oberth (pp 22-25)

3 - The Rocket Societies (selected pages 27-35)
Society of Space Travel - VfR (pp 27-30)
Wernher von Braun (pp 30-31)
Walter Hohmann (pp 31-32)
American Interplanetary Society (pp 33-34)
The Group for Invesitgation of Reaction Motion - GIRD (pp 34-35, Sergei Korolev)

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WAR AND POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS

4 - Peenemunde (selected pages 37-53)
A Weapons Program (pp 37-39)
Early Tests (pp 42-43)
Operational Use (pp 47-49)
Advanced Projects (pp 50-52, epsecially see the list on p 51)
Surrendering the Team (pp 51-53)

5 - Spoils of War (pages 54-61)
Planning Technolog Transfer (pp 54-57)
Operation Paperclip (pp 57-58, The American grab)
Operation Ost (pp 58-60, The Soviet grab)
Creating a Super-Power (pp 60-61)

6 - The Postwar Decade (selected pages 63-78)
White Sands: America's First Rocket Test Facility (p 63)
Kapustan Yar: First Soviet Rocket Test Facility (p 71)
Figure 4: Soviet Military Rockets, 1949-1953 (p 77)
Figure 5: US Military Rocket Development 1948-1954 (p 78)
(Note: The USSR R-5 had 97,000 lbs of thrust, whereas
the US Redstone had 82,000 lbs of thrust)

7 - Rocket Planes (selected pages 79-92)
The Bell X-1: First Supersonic Manned Aircraft (pp 82-85)
The North America X-15: On the Threshold of Space (p 89-91)
Figure 6: US Rocket Planes 1946-1964 (p 92)

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DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE

8 - The Ultimate Weapon: The Path to Space (selected pages 93-104)
The Problem and the Promise (pp 93-94)
Contrasting the Contenders (pp 102-103, US Atlas vs. USSR R-7)
Figure 7: Intercontinental Ballistic Missles (ICBM) 1957 (p104)
(Note: The USSR R-7 had 900,000 lbs of thrust, whereas
the US Atlas had 360,000 lbs of thurst)

9 - Planning on Earth Satellites (selected pages 105-120)
Von Braun's Vision (pp 109-110)
Project Vangaurd (p 115)
Second Thoughts (pp 115-116)
Sputnik: Fellow Traveler (pp 117-119)
Figure 10: First Unmanned Satellite Launch Vehicles 1957-1958 (p 120)

10 - Reaction of the World to Sputnik (pages 121-129)
Caught Flatfooted (pp 121-123)
Affect on the Soviets (pp 123-125)
Sputnik II (pp 125-126)
Psychological Shock Sets In (pp 126-127)
American Recriminations (pp 127-129)

11 - Too Little Too Late (selected pages 131-139)
The Army Moves into Space (pp 131-132)
Explorer I (pp 132-133)
Sputnik III (pp 134-135)
The Van Allen Radiation Belt (pp 135-136)
NASA Established (p 138)
A Big SCORE for America (pp 138-139)
Figure 11: The First Satellites 1957-1958

13 - Spies in Space (selected pages 147-154)
A New Kind of War: A Cold War (pp 147-148)

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MANNED SPACE FLIGHT

16 - The First Manned Spacecraft (selected pages 169-187)
Selecting the Astronauts (pp 172-173)
The Cosmonauts (pp 175-176)
Vostok and the First Man in Space (pp 181-183, Yuri Gagarin)
Mercury Redstone MR-3: Alan Shepard (pp 185-186)
Figure 14: First Manned Satellite Launch Vehicles
(Note: The US Mercury-Atlas is NOT the rocket that Alan Shepard flew on.
He flew on a Mercury-Redstone.)

17 - Overcoming the Unknown (selected pages 189-204)
Grissom Escapes Drowning: MR-4 (pp 189-190)
Vostok II: Titov Overcome by Space Sickness (pp 190-192)
"A real fireball uut there": MA-6 Glenn (pp 193-197)
"I'm out of manual fuel...": MA-7 Carpenter (pp 198-199)
Group Flight: Vostok 3 and 4 (pp 199-200)
"She's riding beautiful...": MA-8 Schirra Lot's of Problems: MA-9 Cooper (pp 201-202)
Lady Cosmonaut: Valentina Tereshkova (pp 202-204)
Figure 15. First Manned Spacecraft 1961-1963

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