Aiming for the Stars: The Dreamers and Doers of the Space Age

By Tom D. Crouch

Book Overview

Aiming for the Stars explores the motivations, goals, trials, and triumphs of the people who pioneered space exploration from the sixteenth century to the modern era. Tom D. Crouch describes space travel's emergence from the pages of science fiction into the laboratories of twentieth-century rocketeers such as Wernher von Braun, who masterminded Nazi rocket development and later became a key figure in the U.S. space program, and Sergei Korolev, an engineer whose successful launches became the foundation of Soviet Cold War policy. The book also explains the goals and missions of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs and describes the 1986 Challenge disaster, the spacefaring adventures of astronaut Shannon Lucid, and the fortunes of the Mir space station in the wake of glasnost. Linking individual obsessions and achievements with the political events and social currents that surrounded them, the book offers a wide-ranging view of the attempt to explore the final frontier.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560988339
• ISBN13: 9781560988335
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press
• Length: 338 Pages
• Weight: 4.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Exploring the Power of the Dream of Spaceflight

Without question "Aiming for the Stars" is an eloquent explanation of the significance of theorists, innovators, scientists, and engineers in the twentieth century who tried to translate their visions of space exploration--although only partly successfully--into reality. This book is focused on great men (they were virtually all males) and their development of great technology. Tom D. Crouch's book is one of the most successful syntheses in the traditional style of space history. This is the kind of synthesis that only a senior scholar with a deep mastery of the subject can carry off, and Crouch does not disappoint. I should add that Tom Crouch is good friend who has made a career out of writing the history of flight, and this book demonstrates well his considerable prowess. "Aiming for the Stars" concentrates on the advocates of spaceflight and how they sold their dreams to the world. Crouch starts with such icons of the spaceflight community, the Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, the German (actually Transylvanian) Hermann Oberth, and the American Robert Goddard. From there he explores the rise of various rocket societies and spaceflight groups in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States and their pre-World War II activities. These groups excited the public and kept the spark of a vision of spaceflight alive during the Great Depression. Crouch progresses chronologically, in the process narrating the development of space exploration through the latter part of the twentieth century. This is an enjoyable book that presents a fine introduction to the history of spaceflight. It is not a detailed scholarly work, but it is a very fine synthesis of the personalities who made spaceflight a reality, Enjoy!

Good Book Summarizing All Aspects of Space Flight To Date

This well written book about the space age provides an excellent summary of the space program to date and people and leaders who made it happen. About half of the book covers the early space pioneers, like Von Braun, Oberth, Goddard and Tsoilkovsky and the early attempts to build a working rocket. The second half covers the early space program, the Apollo missions to the Moon, and eventually moves into the modern era. There are also plenty of chapters about the Russian space program and various robotic explorations of the planets.While most of the information presented in this book can be found in greater detail in other books, this book would be a nice addition to any collection of space flight or for the novice space flight reader who wants to learn a great deal about the space program.

A superb history of space exploration to date.

Aiming For The Stars: The Dreamers And Doers Of The Space Age explores the motivations, goals, trials, and triumphs of the people who pioneered the long road to space exploration. Author and senior curator of aeronautics at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Tom Couch traces the idea of space exploration back to the sixteenth century and describes its emergence from the pages of science fiction into the laboratories of early 20th Century American, Russian, and German rocketeers. Liking individual obsessions and achievements with the political events and social currents that surrounded them, Aiming For The Stars offers a wide-ranging, informative, authoritative and "reader friendly" presentation of the eventually successful attempt to reach and explore beyond the Earth.

A Solid One-Volume Introduction

If you want a one-stop introduction to the history of manned space flight, this is a great place to get it. Tom Crouch is an established historian of aviation, and it shows in his assured blending of narrative, biography, and political background. The astronauts themselves get their due, but so do the designers, engineers, and technocrats who put them into space. The selection of topics is judicious, though it favors pre-1960 material at the expense (especially) of post-1980 material. The illustrations are well-chosen and numerous, without overwhelming the text.Readers already familiar with the history of manned spaceflight and will find few surprises in book--but it was evidently not Crouch's intention to break new interpretive ground. His goal was, evidently, to provide a concise introduction to a sprawling subject. He has succeeded admirably, and even for experts the result is well worth owning--if only for lending out to inquisitive friends.