The tally for publications in Apogee Books' Space Series now amounts to several dozen, including Ted Spitzmiller's two-volume set titled Astronautics. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, Spitzmiller has attempted to synthesize a concise, encyclopedic history of rocketry and space-flight. In 39 chapters, each one designed to give readers "a relatively complete understanding of a special interest area without the need to ferret information from multiple chapters" (p. 9), he chronicles humankind's exploration of space from Copernicus in the early sixteenth century to exotic new forms of spacecraft propulsion for interplanetary voyages in the twenty-first century.
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