À l'assaut de l'espace

À l'assaut de l'espace (Storming Space) traces the history of the rocket from Chinese fireworks to the satellite programmes of the 1950s, in four progressive parts. The first covers the prehistory of rocket propulsion (from medieval fire arrows to war rockets) ; the second examines the era of ballistic missiles and the atomic bomb ; the third addresses the physical principles of spaceflight (propulsion, weightlessness, survival in orbit) ; the fourth is devoted to artificial satellites and orbital stations. Prefaced by General Lionel M. Chassin, commander of French Territorial Air Defence, the book was published one year before the launch of Sputnik. The author, a journalist and literary director of the Hachette science-fiction series "Le Rayon Fantastique", offers a documented survey of the work of Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, Oberth and Von Braun, and discusses the American and Soviet satellite programmes under way at the time of writing.