Over the past few years, we’ve been treated to a stunning array of achievements in space exploration, such as the Juno Mission (inserted into orbit around Jupiter on July 4, 2016), New Horizons (passed Pluto on July 14, 2015), and Rosetta (landed on a comet on November 12, 2014). These missions are all mind-boggling accomplishments, and naturally raise the question: how did we get so awesome at space travel? I’m not even talking about the reasonably well-known early history of NASA’s manned space flight program, but even earlier, when rocket travel out of the earth’s atmosphere was considered an impossible dream by many.
Breaking the Chains of Gravity (2016), by Amy Shira Teitel, takes an in-depth, fascinating, and compelling look at this early history.
Breaking the Chains of Gravity begins with the early rocket hobbyists in Germany in the 1930s and ends with the formation of NASA in 1959. The path to space would be driven by some of the greatest minds and boldest hearts in the world, and would take many dramatic twists and turns along the way. Among the stories told are the dramatic escape of Wernher von Braun from the Germans and into the protective arms of the Americans, the dramatic rocket-powered flight of Chuck Yeager that broke the sound barrier, and the insane self-experimentation of John Stapp on the biological effects of high g-forces. All these stories are woven into a compelling and enjoyable narrative that gives a clear impression of how everything came to pass.
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