Book · 2015
America’s Leap Into Space
My time at JPL and the first Explorer satellites.
After the shock of watching Russia’s Sputnik become the world’s first artificial satellite, America’s infant space program hurried to launch one of its own. In just 90 days, Dr. Henry Richter and his colleagues at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed and launched the nation’s response. Through innovation, teamwork and tenacity, these pioneering scientists and engineers began America’s exploration of space, which continues to determine our place in the cosmos.
The book tracks the development of the Russian, German and American rocketry programs through the World Wars and into the arms race of the Cold War. Henry wrote it from his own recollections and records, accounts from other personnel involved in the US space program, and research in JPL’s archives. It is equal parts memoir and insider history of one of the world’s most dynamic and revolutionary periods.
Nominated for the 2015 Emme Award for Astronautical Literature by the American Astronautical Society.