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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

The Twenty-Second and Twenty-Third History Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) were held in Bangalore, India, in October 1988, and in Torremolinos, Spain, in October 1989 as part of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) Congresses at these venues. All but one of the thirteen papers presented at each history symposium appear in this volume.

(Extracted form the Preface, written by John Becklake, editor).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Foreword. R. Cargill Hall.

-Preface. John Becklake

-Part I: Early Solid Propellant Rocketry.

-1- Indo-Aryan Traditions and History of Astronautics.
-2- William Congreve and the City of Toulouse.

-Part II: Rocketry and Astronautics: Concepts, Theories and Analyses.

-3- The Collaboration of Wernher von Braun and Fred Freeman.
-4- Preserving Chapters in Aerospace History.
-5- A Legacy for the Future: Preserving Space-Related Historic Sites.

-Part III: Rocketry and Astronautics After 1945.

-6- The Evolution of Liquid Rocket Propulsion in France in the Last Fifty Years.
-7- The SE 4100 Family: An Early French Experience in Rocketry.
-8- The SE 4400/4401 Family: A Hypersonic Ramjet in the 1950s.
-9- British Rocket Experiments in the Late 1950s/Early 1960s.
-10- The British Black Night Rocket.
-11- Ariel I: The World's First Cooperative Satellite Venture.
-12- The First Control System for Space Vehicles.
-13- Major Developments Trends of Orbital Space Stations.
-14- The American Rocket Society, 1953-1963: A Memoir.
-15- A Brief History of the German Rocket Society.
-16- "Black Betsy": The 6000C-4 Rocket Engine, 1945-1989, Part 1.
-17- The X-20 Space Plane: Past Innovation, Future Vision.
-18- The Atlas and Centaur "Steel Ballon Tanks": A Legacy of Karel Bossart.
-19- Mercury Primates.
-20- Mercury-Redstone: The First American Man-Rated Space Launch Vehicle.
-21- The Aeromedical Field Laboratory of Space Medicine.
-22- Apollo Scientific Exploration of the Moon.
-23- American Manned Planetary Mission Studies, 1962-1968.

-Part IV: Pioneers of Rocketry and Astronautics.

-24- The Role of Mikhail Klavdiyevich Tikhonravov in Creating Staged Rockets, 1947-1953.
-25- The Activities and Role of Vladimir Petrovich Vetchinkin in the Field of Rocketry.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

The annual symposia by IAF usually gather most of the agencies, organisations and personalities in the space world. They are in each occasion held in different parts of the world, and within them the new programs being planned for the future are shown. Also, many of the international cooperation projects that will bear fruit in the following years are shaped in them. However, not only do the IAF symposia contemplate great displays of aerospace material and high level meetings, but also there is time to look back to the past as well.

The presentation, in a parallel way, of lectures devoted to the history of astronautics, is one of the most noteworthy events. Univelt, together with the American Astronautical Society, has been in charge of collecting most of the texts in these conferences, publishing them in a series of volumes periodically appearing in the market. Volume ten, the one we are dealing with here, is the one that practically completes the updating in the publication of the symposia held so far. The rest have already been assigned to their respective compilators and will be published in the next months.

Among the authors of the texts included in this book we will find distinguished historians, engineers, etc, such as Frank H. Winter, K.P. Feoktistov, Mitchell R. Sharpe, or Wm. David Compton.