posted November 13, 2007 04:28 AM               

For nearly fifty years, a wide range of missiles and rockets have propelled U.S. satellites and spacecraft into the sky. J. D. Hunley's two-volume work traces the evolution of this technology from Robert Goddard's research in the 1920s through the development of the Titan technology in the 1960s to the refinement of the space shuttle technology in the 1980s.

With the first book devoted primarily to military hardware and the second to launch vehicle hardware, Hunley offers a sweeping overview of these impressive engineering innovations as well as insights into the dynamic personalities responsible for them. Together, the two volumes offer a unique, invaluable history of rocketry that should appeal to a wide range of scholars and space buffs.

J. D. Hunley was chief historian of NASA Dryden Flight Research Center before his retirement in 2001. Besides working as a historian for the United States Air Force, NASA History Division, and National Air and Space Museum during his lengthy career, Hunley has also taught at Allegheny College and California State University, San Bernardino.

• Paperback: 480 pages
  
• Publisher: University Press of Florida; First edition (May 22, 2008)
  
• ISBN-10: 0813031788
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0813031781