Award-winning science writer and documentarian Rod Pyle presents an
insider's perspective on the most unusual and bizarre space missions
ever devised inside and outside of NASA. The incredible projects
described here were not merely flights of fancy dreamed up by space
enthusiasts, but actual missions planned by leading aeronautical
engineers. Some were designed but not built; others were built but not
flown; and a few were flown to failure but little reported: A giant
rocket that would use atomic bombs as propulsion (never mind the
fallout), military bases on the moon that could target enemies on earth
with nuclear weapons, a scheme to spray-paint the lenses of Soviet spy
satellites in space, the rushed Soyuz 1 spacecraft that ended with the
death of its pilot, the near-disaster of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the
mysterious Russian space shuttle that flew only once and was then
scrapped--these are just some of the unbelievable tales that Pyle has
found in once top-secret documents as well as accounts that were simply
lost for many decades. These stories, complimented by many rarely-seen
photos and illustrations, tell of a time when nothing was too
off-the-wall to be taken seriously, and the race to the moon and the
threat from the Soviet Union trumped all other considerations. Readers
will be fascinated, amused, and sometimes chilled.