Struggle For Speed.

A popular-science survey of the technology of high speed for young readers, in eleven sections: the birth of materials, victory over metal, the enemies of fast machines, thousands of revolutions per minute, the assault on the sound barrier, “Cosmic Flight,” the conquered electron and the world of automata. The sections run from jet aircraft and turbines to electronics and automation, with a fold-out plate of an automated factory.

The rocket material is the 24-page chapter “Cosmic Flight” (pp.140–163). It opens at Tsiolkovsky’s memorial obelisk in Kaluga and explains orbital and escape velocities, then the fuel problem: Kondratyuk’s figure of 55 times the rocket’s weight, and Esnault-Pelterie’s view that only atomic energy would do (his L’Astronautique of 1930 is in this collection). It answers with Tsiolkovsky’s rocket train and a “squadron” of 512 rockets transferring fuel in flight, then turns to the stratospheric research rocket, the artificial satellite and the space station. The chapter closes by contrasting these peaceful aims with the American film Destination Moon and what it calls imperialist military designs.

Drawings by A. Katkovsky, color plates by A. Orlov and L. Vladimirsky, cover and title page by M. Bolshakov; edited by V. Pekelis. Approved for press 2 October 1952, in an edition of 50,000 copies. The author thanks M. K. Tikhonravov among others.