The Rocket Team: From the V-2 to the Saturn Moon Rocket

Apogee Books Space Series #36

by Frederick Ira Ordway III (Illustrator), Mitchell R. Sharpe

History of the early space age in the US, focusing on Germany's Wernher von Braun and his team.

Genres: Space, History, Science

480 pages, Hardcover

First published June 18, 1979

About the author

Frederick Ira Ordway III was an American space scientist and author of visionary books on spaceflight. As scientific consultant, he was part of the production team of the epic science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Reviews

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book focuses on the team of German engineers from WWII who went from a group of rocket enthusiests in the 1930s to designing everything from the A4 (AKA the V2) to the Saturn 5 rockets and ideas that eventually led to space stations and even the shuttle. The book mainly focuses on the beginning of this story in great detail. Information about this team's work in America only consists of the last 100 pages or less. It mainly deals with the impediments, successes,beurocracy, and luck of this team whose goal from the beginning was space travel, and only designed missles as a means to their end. These engineers were truely passionate about space, seemingly spending every moment thinking, designing and planning the technology and techniques for space travel.

Of course, this book does serve as somewhat of a Werner von Braun biography, though I don't know how it couldn't. Overall it is a great read that details the early works (but not the earliest) of serious rocket science with some vauge technical detail on the workings of the rockets themselves.

--highly recommended to WWII buffs and anyone interested in the history of NASA, spaceflight or rocket sciences.