Star Bound: A Beginner’s Guide to the American Space Program, from Goddard’s Rockets to Goldilocks Planets and Everything in Between

Carney, a former U.S. Navy nuclear technician, joins forces with novelist McCandless (Wonders All Around) to deliver an outstanding overview of American space exploration, starting with physicist Robert Goddard’s 1926 launch of the first liquid-propelled rocket. German engineer Wernher von Braun expanded on Goddard’s innovations by creating the V-2 missile for the Nazis, demonstrating a technical prowess that motivated the U.S. to covertly recruit him for their burgeoning space program after WWII. The authors offer a fleet-footed account of how von Braun and others helped America win the space race, covering NASA’s faltering early days playing catch-up to the Soviets after Sputnik and the agencywide soul-searching after the Apollo 1 crew burned alive on the launchpad. Elsewhere, Carney and McCandless cover the construction of the International Space Station and the rise of SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other private spaceflight companies. The trivia fascinates (NASA got the idea to count down to zero before launches from the 1929 sci-fi film Woman in the Moon), and the authors ground their narrative in colorful character portraits, describing, for instance, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as “equal parts ice and intellect” and “the space community’s problem child,” respectively. This soars. Photos. (Jan.)