Kennedy Space Center: Gateway to Space

This pictorial history of the Kennedy Space Center boasts a highly illuminating text to go with over 150 detailed, richly reproduced photos. The remarkable achievements of NASA's glory days are fully elucidated here, including the flight of Alan Shepard, the first American to ride a rocket into space-just eleven years after the first Cape Canaveral launch-and the first Earth orbit, only a year later, by John Glenn; the journey to the moon aboard the Saturn rocket; and the development of the shuttle. A short history of rocketry includes fascinating historical photos of German engineers working on the V2, and it's to Reynold's credit that he chooses not to gloss over the program's troubling dependence on former Nazi engineers, presenting the story of America's space race with the Soviets in its full post-war context. Nor does Reynolds shrink from the disasters-the fire aboard Apollo 1 and the loss of two space shuttles-and the carelessness and pennywise cost-cutting that caused them. Reynolds concludes with chapters on non-manned space vehicles and on the future of space exploration, followed by an excellent index. Although completed prior to the recent announcements about the shuttle's successors, this book is still extremely practical and enjoyable; Chapter 12, which follows along as the space shuttle is prepared for launch, is worth the cover price alone. It's a solid historical overview, especially appealing to budding engineers between the ages of six and sixteen.