Escape from Earth (eBook)

A Secret History of the Space Rocket

MacDonald Fraser MacDonald (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019
ProFile (Verlag)
978-1-78283-411-3 (ISBN)

Infos

ESCAPE FROM EARTH is the untold story of the engineers, dreamers and rebels who started the American space programme. In particular, it is the story of Frank Malina, founder of what became Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the scientist who cracked the, as he called it, problem of escape from the Earth by rocket. It's a wild ride. Jack Parsons, Malina's chemistry-expert research partner, was a bed-hopping occultist with delusions of grandeur. We get all the horrible details: drug parties and sex magic, cameos by Aleister Crowley and L Ron Hubbard, and an ill-fated attempt to start a mail-order religion. Armed with hitherto unpublished letters, journals, and documents from the Malina family archives, Fraser MacDonald reveals what we didn't know. Jack Parsons betrayed Frank Malina to the FBI, cooperating fully in their investigation of Malina for un-American activities. The Jet Propulsion Lab's second director secretly denounced Frank as a Communist. Frank's research group had close ties to the spy network of the infamous Rosenbergs - the only Americans executed during the Red Scare. This is a story of soaring ideals entangled in the most human of complications: infidelity and divorce, betrayal and treason.

Rezensionen

A compelling saga of secrecy, activism, betrayal ... superb, illuminating

Excellent ... has raised a crucially influential American pioneer rocketeer from obscurity to the recognition he deserves...MacDonald's access to Malina's family archives and freedom of information FBI files adds intimate details to this scholarly and colourful work

A tangled, fascinating story that is a mixture of science, politics and soap opera ... an extraordinary, important yet neglected slice of space history

Riveting ... MacDonald has vastly enriched the overarching story - and in ways transformed it

Excellent ... MacDonald tells this whole grubby story superbly

Frank Malina, one of the most talented pioneers of American rocket science, flirted with communism and pacifism, and then gave it all up-rocketry included-to become a painter. History has in consequence all but erased his memory-except that now, thanks to Fraser MacDonald's fascination with his story and a dogged determination to write this riveting and important book, his legacy has been revived, and will surely long endure.

Absorbing and stimulating ... a superb book which sheds new light on the conflicts of the mid-20th century

A fascinating history of America's ascent into space that literally rewrites our understanding of the rocket age; a story that mixes sex, Nazis, Communists, the FBI, and rockets and along the way reminds us how complicated and untidy even celebrated history can be. Escape from Earth is an instant addition to the rocketry canon, right there with Operation Paperclip and Hidden Figures.

Fascinating ... a superb book

Meticulously researched yet immensely readable ... I have never before seen anyone express with such clarity the contradiction at the heart of the space age ... It is refreshing to read an account of these events that is so nuanced, seamlessly melding the personal and the scientific. This expert history offers insights into the early space age with dazzlingly beautiful writing and a keen eye for irony

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.6.2019
• Zusatzinfo: plate section
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Weltraum / Astronomie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
• ISBN-10: 1-78283-411-7 / 1782834117
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78283-411-3 / 9781782834113