GALLERY OF SPACE SCIENCE POPULARIZED PUBLICATIONS

The book MAN INTO SPACE by Martin Caidin featured astronaut Alan Shepard, Jr.'s experience as the first American launched into space on May 5, 1961 in a Mercury capsule atop a Redstone rocket. The book went beyond the experience of the first Mercury launch in describing the technology, history, and future of manned space exploration. An amusing item appeared among the pictures section in the book's center. A sketch shows a futurized booster with the words, "NOW BOTH THE US AND THE USSR HAVE THEIR SPACEMEN. THE RACE GOES ON...AND THE STARS ARE THE GOAL." The comment was an extreme exaggeration considering Shepard's Mercury had not orbited the Earth while the Russians had succeeded in an orbital manned mission. Only in science fiction is a mission to the stars a goal of the plot. No serious student of space technology believes men will reach the stars (except for the Sun, of course) except in stories and movies like STAR TREK and STAR WARS.