La fusée à travers les âges
De la préhistoire à la conquête de l'espace
Translated from the American English by Jacques Brécard
An illustrated history of the rocket from its origins to the 1970s, translated from The Rockets' Red Glare (1976). Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway III trace the use of rockets through the ages: Greek fire; Chinese, Indian and Arab rockets; Renaissance and classical-age fireworks; Congreve's war rockets; and nineteenth-century applications (sea rescue, whaling, signalling). The closing chapters address the precursors of astronautics (Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, Oberth, Esnault-Pelterie), the V-2 and Peenemünde, the intercontinental ballistic-missile race, and the beginnings of space exploration. The book is lavishly illustrated and supported by a multilingual, chapter-by-chapter bibliography.