Gordon, Theodore J. - Scheer, Julian
First Edition
Gordon fired the American Missile 130 that was First Into Outer Space…
"We began, that warm October morning before dawn, the most dramatic countdown in history. As l stood in the blockhouse, l realized all over again what a momentous day this was . . .
"Outside the blockhouse on the launching pad was an 88-foot, four-stage missile, one of the most powerful man has ever built, a missile capable of pushing an instrument-loaded capsule 24,000 miles an hour through the unknown miles of outer space . . .
«9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-Zero! 'Ignition'
"At first there was no sound. Then there was a rumble. Then the smoke, the noise louder, the lights on the console clicking off in sequence - the first, the second, the third, the fourth. l stood in my tracks, not moving.
"Lift-off. Go, go, go, I said to myself, go, go, go!"
So SPOKE TED GORDON, a Douglas Aircraft engineer, Test Conductor of the three Air Force probes, and at twentynine the man totally responsible in the moment of decision.
Ted Gordon stood in a closely guarded blockhouse at Cape Canaveral. He initiated an event unique in human and in American history - the launching of the first man-made vehicle ever to leave the confines of earth and the first to penetrate outer space. The American vehicle so fired at that dramatic moment in time, was the 'Pioneer Payload' mounted on a three-stage missile. The first three stages were a modified Thor IRBM equipped with a Rocketdyne engine, a modified Vanguard powered by Aerojet General and a solid propellant rocket from Allegheny Ballistics Labo-ratory.
FIRST INTO OUTER SPACE thrills the reader because it is the first account from inside the block-house and by a space engineer which tells not only the human, but the now declassified story of an American "first" - the sortie of Missile 130 to 71,000 miles into outer space.
FIRST INTO OUTER SPACE gives us all confidence in American know-how. With the launching of Sputnik I in October, 1957, Russia, after years of unheralded preparation, had moved ahead of us. In four months from that time a crash program had put an American satellite into orbit. In twelve months an American team had taken one step further and were, with 'Pioneer I first into outer space. These American achievements made under extreme pressure showed emphatically the enormous resource and capabilities of a free society. The government, the Air Force, and private corporations such as Douglas, Aerojet-General, Space Technology Laboratories Inc., Allegheny Ballistics Laboratories, A.C. Spark Plug, General Electric and Rocketdyne, all worked together as one team.
FIRST INTO OUTER SPACE is unlike any other book that has yet appeared on the space age. It has the intimacy of a diary and introduces from direct personal experience the men as well as the technology of this great adventure. The authors capture what it feels like to be a missile-man - the complete depression when things go wrong; the occasional boredom of periods of waiting and of minute testing of equipment; and the excitement and fierce exultation in success.
Hardcover with dust jacket
197 Seiten / pages
With 37 pages of illustrations
good condition, some tears in the edges of dust jacked
New York - 1959 - St. Martin's Press
Art.Nr. 21515
