Breaking the Chains of Gravity The Story of Spaceflight before NASA
Amy Shira Teitel Bloomsbury £16.99 HB
NASA was created in 1958, just three years before President John F Kennedy pledged Teitel covers every success and failure of to land a man on the Moon by the end of the many launches and tests on the road to the 1960s. However, that was not the space throughout the book, but it’s the beginning of the story of spaceflight. human stories that really stand out – most
In Breaking the Chains of Gravity, notably the story of US Air Force flight space-history writer Amy Shira Teitel surgeon John Paul Stapp, who made chronicles the pioneering work of himself the crash test dummy the scientists and engineers for increasingly dangerous like Wernher von Braun deceleration tests. that eventually led to Everything is the creation of NASA. meticulously
The early chapters researched and of the book are an detailed, even adventure yarn based though the narrative around a handful of has a tendency to enthusiastic amateurs become bogged down working away in sheds in endless committees and workshops. Their and meetings. However, efforts to construct a that’s ultimately the point. propulsion system capable One of the reasons for of breaking free of Earth’s John Paul Stapp tests creating NASA was to atmosphere while carrying a the effects of rapid streamline the programme, crew saw them strapping deceleration from 632mph although, at times, it feels the rockets to cars, sleds and airplanes, often power of the story is lost in bureaucracy. with disastrous results! Overall this is a workmanlike tribute to
When the German government and the tenacious scientists, fearless test pilots military get involved during World War II, and undaunted engineers, who saw every the story becomes an enthralling war-time setback as something to be learned from, tale of Nazis versus the scientists. A tale and whose tenacity paved the way to the that culminates in the creation of the Moon and beyond. infamous V2 rocket and the scientists’ daring escape to America to continue their research during the Cold War as the US and USSR raced to be the first into space. JENNY WINDER is a freelance science writer, astronomer and broadcaster