Rockets Beyond The Earth.

Martin Caidin’s first space-flight survey, copyright 1952 by The McBride Company, New York, with the imprint line “First Printing” and simultaneous Canadian publication by McClelland & Stewart, Toronto; photolithoprinted by Braun-Brumfield, Ann Arbor. Drawings are by Fred L. Wolff and Jerry J. Schlamp, and the Acknowledgment thanks, among others, James L. H. Peck for technical advice, Lt. Col. Clair E. Towne, U.S. Army, for photographs, Lt. Col. C. B. Whitehead of Air University, and Frank Forrester of the Hayden Planetarium.

Sixteen chapters run from “The Air Ocean” and “The New Era” through “The Beginning,” “Development of the Rocket Missile,” and chapters on wartime and postwar rocket aircraft, to “Through Time and Space,” “Introduction to Space,” “Stations in Space,” “Building the Satellite,” “Man in the Void,” “The Moon,” “Who Owns the Moon?,” “Fortress in the Sky,” “Exploring the Planets,” and “The Challenge.” The wartime section narrates the German Me 163 Komet in action against B-17 and B-24 formations and the vertical-launch Bachem Ba 349 Natter, shown in a Schlamp drawing with its caption noting the pilot was killed on the only test flight.

Photographs and drawings run throughout, including rocket launches, rocket aircraft and spaceship concepts. This copy is ex-library, stamped “United States Air Force, Pan American Airways, Technical Library, Patrick AFB, Fla.,” on the title page and inside the rear board, with shelf marks and accession numbers in ink.