Rockets and Missiles: The Life Story of a Technology

Beginning with World War II, missiles transformed the art of war. For the first time, cities of warring nations were vulnerable to sudden, unannounced, long-distance attacks. At the same time, rockets made possible one of the great triumphs of the modern age--the exploration of space. Beginning with the origins of rocketry in medieval and early modern Asia, Rockets and Missiles traces the history of the technology that led to both the great fear of global warfare and the great excitement of the Space Age.

This volume focuses on rocketry in late-twentieth-century Western Europe, Russia, and the United States, as well as the spread of rocket technology to East Asia and the Middle East. It covers the full history of rocket technology--including how rockets improved in performance, reliability, and versatility and how they affected everyday life.

Author: A. Bowdoin Van Riper
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 12/01/2007
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.71lbs
Size: 9.17h x 6.12w x 0.48d
ISBN: 9780801887925

About the Author

A. Bowdoin Van Riper, an adjunct professor at Southern Polytechnic State University, is the author of Looking Up: Aviation and the Popular Imagination; Science in Popular Culture: A Reference Guide; and Men among the Mammoths: Victorian Science and the Discovery of Human Prehistory.