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BookmarkMore comprehensive than The Right Stuff, more critical than Apollo 13, This New Ocean is a near-perfect history of the men (and occasional women) who have "slipped the surly bonds of Earth." Eminent science journalist and space expert William E.
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Burrows covers just about everyone in history--from Daedalus to John Glenn--who ever designed or flew a rocket, trying to "ride the arrow" to the moon and beyond.
It's a trail of testosterone from start to finish, but it makes for an engrossing read.
One of Burrows's most interesting points is that without the cold war we never would have made it into space.
He writes, "...the rocket would forever serve two masters at the same time, or rather a single master with two dispositions: one for war and one for peace." Werner von Braun, Robert Goddard, and other rocketry pioneers may indeed have wanted to explore space, but they knew the only way to get there was on the military's back.
Burrows extensively researched his subject, and he seems to want to include a little bit of everything; too much detail bogs down the narrative in places.
Then again, he is no apologist for the space programs of the United States and the former U.S.S.R., and to tell their complete stories requires laying a great deal of political and scientific groundwork.
For more information about the title This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age (Modern Library Paperbacks), read the full description at Amazon.com, or see the following related books:
Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of S) — It was a time of bold new technology, historic moments, and international jousting on the final frontier. But it was also a time of human drama, of ... > read more
Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons — ROCKET SCIENTIST KILLED IN PASADENA EXPLOSION screamed the headline of the Los Angeles Times. John Parsons, a maverick rocketeer who helped transform ... > read more
First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong — "On July 20, 1969, the world stood still to watch thirty-eight-year-old American astronaut Neil A. Armstrong become the first person ever to step on ... > read more
The First Men on the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration) — On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. One month later, President John F. Kennedy challenged the American nation to ... > read more
