The Key To Interplanetary Space Travel.

The title page reads The Key to Interplanetary Space Travel (with Illustrated set inside the lettering) by Bradford Chambers, B.A., M.A., illustrated by Eve Chambers, Stravon Publishers, New York, 1956. Copyright 1956 by Stravon Publishers; Library of Congress card no. 55-12326. The photo acknowledgments list the United States Air Force, the U.S. Navy and Mt. Wilson Observatory.

An opening page, “Two Historic Plans,” ties the book to the President’s announcement of earth-circling satellites for 1957–58 and adds a last-minute claim, made as the book went to press, of live vegetation on Mars. The ten chapters run from “Breaking Through the ‘A’ Barrier” and “Escape from Earth” through “Station in Space,” “Design in Space,” “Interlude in Space,” “No Man’s Land,” “The Space Suit” and “Ships in Space” to “Take-off to the Moon” and “Trip to Mars.” The photographs include the Navy and Air Force pressure suits shown side by side and mice weightless inside a rocket; the back cover credits the two-stage WAC Corporal of 1949 as the first definite step to space travel.