BREAKING THE CHAINS OF GRAVITY: THE STORY OF SPACEFLIGHT BEFORE NASA
Book ID/图书代码： 02000015B82732
English Summary/英文概要： NASA’s history is a familiar story, one that typically peaks with Neil Armstrong taking his small step on the Moon in 1969. But America’s space agency - and in particular its Apollo lunar-landing program - wasn’t created in a vacuum. It was assembled from pre-existing parts, drawing together some of the best minds the non-Soviet world had to offer.
In the 1930s, rockets were all the rage in the Germany, the focus both of scientists hoping to fly into space and of the Wehrmacht, seeking weapons with which to circumvent the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. These two strands came together in Wernher von Braun, an engineer who designed the rockets that became the devastating V-2. As the war came to its chaotic conclusion, von Braun orchestrated a daring escape from the ruins of Nazi Germany, and was taken to America where he began developing missiles for the US Army. Ten years later his Redstone rocket was the only one capable of launching a satellite into orbit. Just what that satellite would be was under the remit of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the leading body in aeronautical research in the United States. While working out how to get a nuclear warhead through the atmosphere, NACA pioneered a round-bottomed capsule that could also keep men safe when returning from space. Meanwhile, the US Air Force was looking ahead to a time when men would fly in space; pilots were riding to the fringes of space in balloons to see how humans handled radiation at high altitude, while test pilots like Neil Armstrong flew cutting-edge, rocket-powered aircraft in the thin upper atmosphere.
With a narrative featuring a number of key historical figures, Breaking the Chains of Gravity tells the story of America’s nascent space program, its scientific advances, its personalities and the rivalries it caused between the various arms of the United States military, right up to the launch of Sputnik in 1957. At this point getting a man in space became a national imperative, leading to the creation by Dwight D. Eisenhower of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： NASA的历史大家都耳熟能详，以1969年阿姆斯特朗登上月球达到了巅峰。但美国的航空航天，尤其是阿波罗登月计划，并非横空出世，这凝聚了此前多位非苏联世界的精英的心血和结晶。
本书讲述了多位关键历史人物的故事，美国航空航天项目的故事及其科学进步、个性以及在美国各大军队之间造成的竞争局面。直到1957年苏联发射的第一颗人造卫星Sputnik，将人类送上太空成了这个国家必须完成的人物，这直接导致艾森豪威尔建立NASA……（LYR）
Awards/获奖情况：•Winner of the 2025 YADude Award. Link: https://yadudebooks.ca/announcing-the-winners-of-the-2025-yadudebooks-awards/
About the Author/作者介绍： Amy Shira Teitel是一位航空航天历史的狂热爱好者，最终将她学生时期对阿波罗任务的着迷变成了研究航空航天史细节的职业。
Amy最初通过她的博客“古老的太空”面向大众撰写航空航天方面的文章。她也为一系列在线及纸质出版物撰文。她还运营一个正在发展中的YouTube频道（也叫做“古老的太空”），并在探索频道（Discovery）等多个频道出境。
Amy Shira Teitel is a lifelong space-history nerd who has turned her schoolgirl fascination with the Apollo missions into a career researching the minutiae of spaceflight’s history.
Amy started writing for the public with her blog, Vintage Space. She has also written for a number of other online and print publications including Discovery News Space, Al-Jazeera, The Guardian and Universe Today. She runs a thriving YouTube channel (also called Vintage Space), and has appeared on the Discovery channel, the Military channel, SyFy, and the Science channel, and she is a host on DNews, Discovery Channel’s online daily news show. Amy was also an embedded journalist on the New Horizons team, bringing the excitement of humanity’s first mission to Pluto to the space-loving public.
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Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE(到期可授)
Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE
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