Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA

The revealing backstory of spaceflight before the establishment of NASA.

NASA's history is a familiar story, culminating with the agency successfully landing men on the moon in 1969, but its prehistory is an important and rarely told tale. Breaking the Chains of Gravity looks at the evolving roots of America's space program--the scientific advances, the personalities, and the rivalries between the various arms of the United States military.

America's space agency drew together some of the bes...