40.000 Kilomètres à l'heure

Published six months after Sputnik I's launch, 40,000 Kilometres per Hour surveys the postwar speed race from supersonic aircraft to space rockets. The book unfolds in three parts: the fantastic aviation of the 1950s (SO 9000 Trident, X-15, rocket aircraft), rocket propulsion (from amateur pioneers to Peenemünde, from ballistic missiles to atomic and ion propulsion), and the conquest of space (Sputnik, Explorer, lunar voyages, orbital stations, spacesuits). A technical appendix on rocket physics rounds out the volume.