posted 01-26-2015 01:31 PM               

In this riveting book, Doug Gangler brings alive the fast-moving yet intensive history of the modern rocket. Featured are forty-one rocket and space "attractions" spread over the five countries — Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States — in which the story of the modern rocket occurred. Discussed are:

• Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, American Robert Goddard, Austro-Hungarian-German Hermann Oberth, France's Robert Esnault-Pelterie, German-American Wernher von Braun, the Soviet Union's Sergei Korolev, and other great rocketeers.

• The German A-4/V-2 which was the critical link to modern rocketry. This wartime rocket was controversial, yet marked amazing technological progress for its era.

• The latter 1940s/1950s which saw rocket efforts first aimed at ballistic missiles; major resources and technologies were soon also directed toward developing the great launch vehicles — to this day taking magnificent payloads to space.

Pure, fascinating history with a good dose of rocket technology, "The Road to Modern Rocketry" relies on Doug's seamless blending of sources including great publications, archival work, and a superb collection of images, to bring a fresh perspective to rocketry. The present-day launch bases, test/engineering centers, museums, old WWII planned launch bunkers, memorials, rocket/space theme parks, and monuments are an almost unique set of sites telling the incredible, inspirational story of the modern rocket. Let the journey begin!

Doug Gangler was a career U.S. Naval Officer, after which he ran a tour business for ten years taking clients to the military history sites of Western Europe. It was on the Continent starting with a visit to Peenemuende, then back in the United States and trips to its incredible rocket and space attractions, that he became intensely interested in rocketry. There are many terrific battlefield guides on military history. This book is an attempt to bring a similar amount of detail, organization, and enthusiasm to the story and associated sites of the modern rocket.

• Paperback: 280 pages
  
• Publisher: Champion Books, LLC; 1 edition (December 24, 2014)
  
• ISBN-10: 0991517709
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0991517701