SPACE : The story of Man's greatest feat of exploration

On October 4th, 1957, Sputnik I soared into orbit, speeding round the Earth and transmitting signals to radio stations on every continent. This was the start of the Space Age. Since that historic day, man has progressed so rapidly into space that he has constantly replaced science fiction with science fact.

( ... ) In this book, the author tells the full story of space exploration from the very earliest theories to the recent lunar landings and inter - planetary probes. He describes how the Greek philosophers recorded the first serious thoughts about space travel, how the Arab astronomers were the first to appreciate that the earth's atmosphere thins out with increasing height above the ground, and how the very first science fiction story - Lucian's True History ( the story of a Moon - Voyage ) was written as long ago as A.D. 150. He traces the history of the rocket over the centuries, describing its military uses, its development by the Germans at Peenemünde into the deadly V2 rocket and its evolution into Vanguard, the first successful American space probe, in 1958.

In the later chapters, which form the main body of the book, the author covers the exploratory space experiments in the United States and the U.S.S.R. immediately after the war, the launching of the Sputniks and other satellites, and the remarkable events of recent years - the first American orbital flight, the space meetings and the space walks, the first soft landing on the Moon and the close - range photographs of Mars obtained from Mariner 4. He concludes with a thought - provoking chapter on exploring the solar system and on the fascinating possibilities of interstellar flight.

The author, well known for his BBC television series on astronomy, " The Sky At Night ", is the author of many books on astronomy. Space is undoubtedly his major book to date. ( ... )