Product Description

This book outlines the development of space technology for military purposes from its very beginnings during World War II right up to the latest, most sophisticated systems. The author starts with references to the prewar era, then goes on to discuss German rocketry during World War II and their bold wartime ambitions, which were finally developed during the Cold War. By the mid-1950s, space was being visualized as the next big battlefield, and both the U.S. and Soviet Union had ambitions to expand their domains into the solar system. Many of these ideas were completely impractical, way beyond possible realization, extremely dangerous, and completely unaffordable. By the start of manned spaceflight, missions became politically motivated, although military projects continued in the background and this would eventually surface as the Star Wars proposals.
This is a serious, factual study about the many projects that have come to the drawing board since the very beginning of space technology development; from the early experiments by the Germans in World War II, through the X-plane era, 'Star Wars', and then to the advanced spaceplane projects such as NASP (National Aerospace Plane), Copper Coast, and the Aurora spaceplane, Soviet spaceplanes and long-range USAF hypersonic strike and orbital aircraft. Many photos are included to illustrate the detailed and comprehensive text.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #432784 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

About the Author
Bill Rose has worked for science journals, technical publications, and various national and provincial newspapers. His principle areas of interest are photography, space exploration, aviation, and astronomy. As an experienced amateur astronomer Bill has worked as a researcher for several UK-based TV production companies and currently runs a small photographic business.

Customer Reviews

Very good book
This is a very detailed, authoritative reference book about military space projects usually hardly known. Definitely a must to have for those interested in this unusual subject, for which good books are hard to find. Great pictures too.

It's a good start!
I think it is a good starting point to write a comprehensive book about military and dual purposes space projects and technologies. The book is well illustrated has a good pictures quality and print overall. It would be better if the book would be structured by the similar technology and historical development (Mercury vs. Vostok, Skylab vs. Salyut, Shuttle vs. Buran, X-20 vs. Hermes, etc.) rather then by the country's ambitions and by the projects at the same time, which is somewhat confusing. I understand that it is impossible to write about every project that was existed or currently is under development, however I would like to consider a few, perhaps for the next edition: VETA, Sanger (Germany), Concept Ascender (UK), SHECMA, Ariane (France), Hope (Japan), Shavit (Israel), Shenzhou, Project 921-3 (China), Navaho G-26, Snark SM-62, High Altitude Research Program (HARP) as a suborbital artillery gun, X-37 (X-40A), X-43 (US). For the Soviet Union secret military projects I would recommend the book by Anton Pervushin "Battle for Stars the Space Opposition" (ISBN 5-17-014587-X). Unfortunately for many readers this book is written in Russian. Overall, I would recommend Bill Rose book for the people who like airspace technology, its history, and development because there are a lot of useful information in it regarding different projects and concepts which are still can be applicable today for the space exploration either with civil or dual purposes. For additional reading I would suggest the book by Giles Sparrow "Spaceflight" which is good about the space exploration, programs, and technologies in general.

Hides its light under a bushel
The first thing I would say about this is thats its a really fantastic book. On space projects and so on its one of the most comprehensive I've found. Don't expect to find pictures of UFO's in here, do expect to find a lot of interesting NASA and 'military' space projects. Very good section on Russian technology, nuclear space technology, Nazi programs, British programs, space born weapons. Good on things like the lost NASA programs like the X-33 and other advanced launch SSTO vehicles. - And above all lots of really good quality pictures of all these things.
What isn't here is anything thats still highly classified or super top secret but what were you expecting?