Willy Ley (1906–1969)

My edition is 1952. Amazing book, recommended by one of the astronaut's whose biography I read last month. It begins with an extensive list of literary fictional (hypothetical) space travel from the first century. The author is very excellent at describing concepts, interlaced with anecdotal humorous incidents, and (bias) facts, some of which are disputed in the appendix. When he described his own work, I found it was a little too long-winded, and he kept randomly switching scales (from km to feet, Kelvin to Fahrenheit), and sometimes his quoted figures did not match the charts in the appendix, but overall this was a thoroughly interesting and stimulating read. With the aid of the internet today to see the outcomes (and discrepancies) of the rocket experiments, I recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject.… (more)