Revised 1/03/2005

Author(s)

Stuhlinger Ernst

Ordway III Frederick I.

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Although rockets appeared on the scene some eight centuries ago, the development of their high-performance descendants dates only to the 1930s. It was then that Wernher von Braun and his colleagues in Germany undertook an energetic and systematic program to develop rockets that evolved into the wartime V-2. By 1958, the von Braun team, now working in the United States, orbited America's first satellite with their Juno I derivative. A decade later, their giant Saturn V began powering three-man Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. This book is based on close personal and professional relationships of the authors with von Braun (25 years for Ordway, 34 years for Stuhlinger). Enriched by more than a hundred carefully recorded and edited interviews, this authoritative work also includes several hundred verbal and written comments on von Braun by people who knew him well.

"The authors, who worked together with Wernher v. Braun, give a very good impression of the man and the technician, but they never make him a "superman," they show him like he really was, as objective as it is possible for them." -- Reviews of Astronomical Tools, Vol. 2 No. 1 (1994)

"These two books constitute the most definitive and well-balanced biography of Wernher von Braun published to date. Essentially, they form a single work, one containing text and the other photographs and drawings…Few of the principals in the von Braun story are still alive, making it unlikely that anything on a par with this work could ever be done again.  Highly recommended." -- Elliott Swanson, Booklist, September 1994

"The wealth of pictures, many from his personal collections never before published, is accompanied by short captions and explanations of the occasions captured in the photos. They make space history more vivid and easier to follow." -- Journal of Space Law, V. 22, 1994

"These two books are treasures. They tell and show us what happened. And, because we navigate into an unknown future, we cannot know where we should go unless we know how and why we got where we are. These books are worth every penny." -- G. Harry Stine, Journal of Practical Applications in Space, Feb. 1995

"…a real treasure for space historians." -- Ron White, Countdown, November/December 1994

"The coverage of the illustrated memoir is good, but it is not until you dip into the biographical memoir that you realize what you were missing. This is a real history book, the result of 14 years of research and writing for which Ordway conducted nearly a hundred interviews on both sides of the Atlantic.' -- Mark Williamson, Earth Space Review, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1995

"...for those interested in the birth of the US Space program, it will be well worth the time and money." -- C.G. Wood, CHOICE, December 1994, Vol. 32 No. 4

"The purpose of these two volumes is to accurately chronicle Wernher von Braun's extraordinary life. The books accomplish this exceedingly well…I cannot think of any authors who could write a biography better than Stuhlinger and Ordway who had very close personal and work relationships with von Braun." -- Rob Landis, Planetarian, Vol. 25, No. 3, September 1996

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