Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science

NASA SP-4211 in the NASA History Series, by Newell, NASA’s first head of space science and later Associate Administrator. Preface dated Alexandria, Virginia, January 1979, thanking NASA History Office archivist Lee Saegesser and Goddard’s Dr. Norman Ness and Dr. John O’Keefe for their manuscript reviews. Twenty-two chapters in six parts trace the field from its rocket-borne upper-atmosphere origins in 1946 through the Rocket and Satellite Research Panel and the IGY satellite program, the creation of NASA, its often fractious relations with the Department of Defense, the Academy of Sciences, universities, and JPL, and on to the broadening scope of solar-system and life-sciences research and the outlook for the Space Shuttle era. Appendixes reprint panel memberships, RSRP proposals for a national space program, and President Nixon’s 7 March 1970 statement on the space program.