To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S. Launch Vehicles

Rating:
Summary: Recommended With Some Cautions
Review: * TO REACH THE HIGH FRONTIER is a history of sorts of the
evolution of American space launch vehicles, from the
Jupiter-C to the space shuttle. I say "of sorts" because
this is not a single document, instead being a collection
of a dozen separate essays by different authors on various
pieces of the topic, with the different pieces overlapping
enough to give a fairly good survey.

This is not exactly an easy-reading book, since most of the
articles look like something that would be (and may
originally have been) published in the aerospace industry
press. While not exactly bone-dry, they tend a bit towards
the stiff, and some of them, like the essay on solid fuel
rockets, have something of the feel of a "coredump", meaning
information poured out without great concern for structure
or flow.

However, at the same time that particular chapter is a goldmine
of information on the subject, though (like any goldmine) it
requires some digging to extract it. The same comment basically
applies to the rest of the material to a greater or lesser
degree. There's great information here, though not surprisingly
the quality of the writing varies from essay to essay.

The essay approach also makes the book feel a little spotty.
For example, the book fails to discuss some upper stage
technologies -- the Able and Agena for example -- in much
detail, while two chapters are dedicated to the Centaur upper
stage. This doesn't end up being a complaint, however, since
one is on the ill-fated attempt to use the Centaur as a shuttle
upper stage, which is a very obscure but interesting story
that I have never seen discussed in any detail before.

The use of illustrations is similarly spotty, with some
good illustrations and some omissions of some things that
would have been very useful, such as an evolutionary diagram
of the confusing line of Delta-class boosters. It would have
been preferable to have a more orderly and consistent book,
but that doesn't mean this is a bad book by any means, and
as the saying goes, it will do until the real thing comes
along.

Rating:
Summary: Well Researched Overview of Space Launch Vehicles
Review: Well-known aerospace experts Launius and Jenkins have done a good job assembling 12 well-written chapters covering every major U.S. launch vehicle - Atlas, Delta, Titan, Saturn, Shuttle, etc. - as well as the Centaur upper stage. All of the chapters (including several by Launius and Jenkins) are very thorough in their coverage, resenting a well-written chronology of the subject. Extensive notes at the end of each chapter. Highly recommended.