Rockets and Revolution
eBook - ePub

Rockets and Revolution

A Cultural History of Early Spaceflight

  1. 448 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Rockets and Revolution

A Cultural History of Early Spaceflight

About this book

Rockets and Revolution offers a multifaceted study of the race toward space in the first half of the twentieth century, examining how the Russian, European, and American pioneers competed against one another in the early years to acquire the fundamentals of rocket science, engineer simple rockets, and ultimately prepare the path for human spaceflight.

Between 1903 and 1953, Russia matured in radical and dramatic ways as the tensions and expectations of the Russian revolution drew it both westward and spaceward. European and American industrial capacities became the models to imitate and to surpass. The burden was always on Soviet Russia to catch up—enough to achieve a number of remarkable "firsts" in these years, from the first national rocket society to the first comprehensive surveys of spaceflight. Russia rose to the challenges of its Western rivals time and again, transcending the arenas of science and technology and adapting rocket science to popular culture, science fiction, political ideology, and military programs. While that race seemed well on its way to achieving the goal of space travel and exploring life on other planets, during the second half of the twentieth century these scientific advances turned back on humankind with the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile and the coming of the Cold War.

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Yes, you can access Rockets and Revolution by Michael G. Smith in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & 20th Century History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. List of Illustrations
  7. List of Tables
  8. Introduction
  9. Part 1.
  10. 1. Envisioning the Biological Universe
  11. 2. Mystical Economies of Earth and Space
  12. 3. The Mechanics of Interplanetary Travel
  13. Part 2.
  14. 4. Lyrical Cosmism of the Russian Revolution
  15. 5. The Pioneers and the Spaceflight Imperative
  16. 6. Rocket Spaceships as Science Fictions
  17. 7. The Origins and Ends of Life on Earth
  18. Part 3.
  19. 8. The First Foundations of Astronautics
  20. 9. A Race into the Stratosphere
  21. 10. Stalinism and the Genesis of Cosmonautics
  22. Conclusion
  23. Notes
  24. Selected Bibliography
  25. Index
  26. About Michael G. Smith