A concise history of spaceflight, from military rocketry through Sputnik, Apollo, robots in space, space culture, and human spaceflight today. Spaceflight is one of the greatest human achievements of the twentieth century. The Soviets launched Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957; less than twelve years later, the American Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon. In this volume of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Michael Neufeld offers a concise history of spaceflight, mapping the full spectrum of activities that humans have developed in space. Neufeld explains that "the space program" should not be equated only with human spaceflight. Since the 1960s, unmanned military and commercial spacecraft have been orbiting near the Earth, and robotic deep-space explorers have sent back stunning images of faraway planets. Neufeld begins with the origins of space ideas and the discovery that rocketry could be used for spaceflight. He then discusses the Soviet-U.S. Cold War space race and reminds us that NASA resisted adding female astronauts even after the Soviets sent the first female cosmonaut into orbit. He analyzes the two rationales for the Apollo program: prestige and scientific discovery (this last something of an afterthought). He describes the internationalization and privatization of human spaceflight after the Cold War, the cultural influence of space science fiction, including Star Trek and Star Wars, space tourism for the ultra-rich, and the popular desire to go into space. Whether we become a multiplanet species, as some predict, or continue to call Earth home, this book offers a useful primer.

Class of '31 is a beautifully written memoir from Walter Jessel, a German Jew determined to answer the question that haunted him since emigrating to the United States in 1938: "Would the people of other nations, if they were placed in the same position as the German during the Hitler regime, behave in the same manner?" Born in 1913 in Frankfurt, Jessel led an extraordinary twentieth-century life on three continents. In 1945, Jessel returned to Germany as an American soldier and sought out his former classmates, hoping to understand how they survived, or thrived, in Nazi Germany. Incredibly personal and honest, ""Class of '31"" is a valuable primary source for anyone interested in the history of German Jews.

Class of '31 is a beautifully written memoir from Walter Jessel, a German Jew determined to answer the question that haunted him since emigrating to the United States in 1938: "Would the people of other nations, if they were placed in the same position as the German during the Hitler regime, behave in the same manner?" Born in 1913 in Frankfurt, Jessel led an extraordinary twentieth-century life on three continents. In 1945, Jessel returned to Germany as an American soldier and sought out his former classmates, hoping to understand how they survived, or thrived, in Nazi Germany. Incredibly personal and honest, ""Class of '31"" is a valuable primary source for anyone interested in the history of German Jews.

In mid-1943 Nazi Germany entered a crisis from which it was to emerge vanquished. Faced with a shortage of manpower in armaments factories, the Third Reich sent concentration camp prisoners to work as slaves. While the genocide of the Jews and the Gypsies continued at extermination camps, numerous outside "Kommandos" were set up in the vicinity of the large concentration camps. The Dora Camp, located in the center of Germany, was one of the most notorious. Originally a mere Kommando attached to Buchenwald, it became one of the largest Nazi concentration camps. There prisoners were put to work in a huge underground factory, building V-2 rockets, the secret weapon developed by German scientists in an attempt to reverse the course of the war, under the direction of Wernher von Braun. In this dispassionate but powerful account, Andre Sellier, himself a former prisoner at Dora, tells the dramatic story of the camp, the tunnel factory, and the underground work sites. He has utilized all available documents as well as unpublished testimony from several dozen fellow prisoners. He recounts the horrors of everyday life at Dora-prisoners dying by the hundreds and indescribable suffering-and the murderous "evacuation" of the camp by railroad convoys and death marches, which took place in early 1945 and led to the death of thousands of prisoners. Illustrated with 20 pages of photographs and drawings, and 24 maps."