Books in English
Characteristics Of The Rocket Motor Unit Based On The Theory Of Perfect Gases.
Pages 433-454. Theoretical work on rocket motors by a founding member of the JPL. These theoretical studies were undertaken before practical tests were attempted.
Rockets, Dynamotors, Jet Motors.
Explains rocketry in a Q&A format. This is the first edition with copyright by Wetzel in Los Angeles, CA.
Rockets. The Future Of Travel Beyond The Atmosphere.
Ley’s first book in English about rockets.
German Flying Bombs - Spotters Guide.
Wartime publication with photos and drawings of German V1 weapons. For N.A.S.C. members only.
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Reporting the Robot Bomb
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Flying Bombs.
Agency of the British Government, Information Division Wartime publication. Profusely illustrated with photos of the V1 weapon attacks on England. Published in New York City at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
Rockets And Jets.
A non-technical account of rockets and rocketry. First edition, first printing with the “I” and the war eagle emblem on the copyright page. Later printings lack the war eagle.
The Coming Age Of Rocket Power.
Popular account of the history of rocket development.
Rockets - New Trail To Empire.
Identified as a second edition because the first edition was a mimeographed copy. Signed by Farnsworth. Also in the collection, a signed notice from the US Rocket Society (Jan. 1945) announcing this booklet.
Rocket Research - History and Handbook.
The “New” edition from January 19, 1945 as stated in front page. With a new preface, additional patents (up to No. 2,344,957) and a list of rocket societies.
Theory And Testing Of Jet Propulsion Motors And Rockets.
Discusses testing of jets and rockets. Wraps.
Rocket Assemblies.
Inventory of parts and assemblies for rocket-propelled artillery rounds and similar. Not illustrated. Softcover, no DJ, as issued.
First International Rocket Air Mail Flight, From the United States of America to the United States of Mexico (and return).
Leather-bound souvenir volume commemorating the July 2, 1936 rocket mail flight across the Rio Grande between McAllen, Texas and Reynosa, Tamaulipas. Conventionally dated 1936, but the foreword’s references to the bazooka and to Roosevelt as sitting president place its actual production closer to 1943–1945. Two copies in the collection, identical in text but not in contents: one bound with genuine flown covers bearing period postage and cancellations, the other with mounted specimens and uncut sheets only. Referenced in Billig’s Rocket Mail Catalogue (Vol 8, 1955), also available in this collection.
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First International Rocket Air Mail
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Books in Russian
Tsiolkovsky.
Biography of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. It references and reproduces Kibalchich’s diagram for a rocket (1918) also available in this collection.
Moon.
Signed and inscribed, a history of proposed methods to travel to the moon, includes a section on rocketry.
On The Energy Equation Of Ballistics Of Missiles.
Article on pages 3-26 of this journal. Shapiro researched rocketry, ballistics, and jet weapons in Russia.
German Aircraft-Missiles.
Stenogram (“Германские самолеты-снаряды”) of a public lecture on the V-1 by engineer-lieutenant colonel V. F. Bolotnikov, delivered August 25, 1944 in the October Hall of Moscow’s House of Unions, weeks after Churchill’s own account of the campaign to the House of Commons. Issued by the Lecture Bureau of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars, printed at the Pravda press in a run of 20,000 copies and marked “на правах рукописи” (circulated in lieu of formal publication) — disposable, of-the-moment wartime ephemera rarely found intact today.
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Moscow’s First Word on the V-1
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Books in Italian & French
Propulsori A Reazione Per L'Astronautica, Seconda Comunicazione.
An expanded version of Gussalli’s paper from 1930.
I Viaggi Interplanetari.
Introduction to rocketry and its history by a popular science writer. Includes a review of the rockets proposed by Luigi Gussalli.
Il Segretto Della Propulsione A Reazione.
Probably one of the first accounts of Germany’s V-weapons in book form in Italian. Illustrated.
Expériences Et Analyse Du Moteur À Réaction (Le V-2).
Conference given at the Palais de la Découverte on May 24, 1945.
Books in German
Raketen In Der Kriegstechnik.
Introduction to rockets and a small survey of German rocket-propelled munitions. Rare wartime German publication.
Die Entwicklung Des Raketenantriebes In Allgemein Verständlicher Darstellung. Band I, Band II, Band III.
Complete set of three volumes, each dated by its own preface (Solothurn, October 1944 to February 1945), written by a private Swiss engineer with no wartime allegiance to either side. The collection also holds a rebound incomplete set (missing Band I).
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A Neutral Engineer’s War
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