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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

In this volume, the American Astronautical Society's history series publishes fifteen papers presented at the twenty-fifth History Symposium of the International Academy of Astronautics. This symposium occurred in conjunction with the congress of the International Astronautical Federation in Montreal, Canada, in 1991. For the most part, this volume contains the first published versions of these papers in English, although some have appeared in journals like the Acta Astronautica. Since the papers were written in 1991, tenses and place names in some cases are no longer current, but to preserve the integrity of the papers, I have left those elements as they appeared in the original versions.

(Extracted form the Preface, written by J.D. Hunley, editor).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Foreword. Donald C. Elder.

-Preface. J.D. Hunley.

-Part I: Early Solid-Propellant Rocketry.

-1- French Rocketry 1739-1872.

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

-2- Gravity Propulsion Research at UCLA and JPL, 1962-1964.

-Part III: The Development of Liquid- and Solid-Propellant Rockets, 1880-1945.

-3- The Romanian Inventor Paul Popovatz's Contribution to Jet Propulsion Theory and Practice.

-Part IV: Rocketry and Astronautics After 1945.

-4- The Navaho Cruise Missile--A Burst of Technology.
-5- Development of the Jupiter Propulsion System.
-6- Project Farside.
-7- From the Development History of the Vostok Spacecraft.
-8- Segmented Rocket Demonstration: Historical Development prior to their Use as Space Boosters.
-9- Coralie: The Forgotten Rocket.
-10- Vela--A Space System Success Story.
-11- Construction and Testing of the First Soviet Automatic Interplanetary Stations.
-12- The Role of Academician S.P. Korolev in the Development of Space Rocket Vehicles for Lunar Exploration with the Help of Manned Spaceships.
-13- Black Arrow--The First British Satellite Launcher.

-Part V: Pioneers of Rocketry and Astronautics.

-14- The Experience of Hermann Oberth.
-15- Activities of Former Peenemunders who Remained in Germany.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

The 20th. volume of the AAS History Series compiles the papers presented during the 25 Symposium of History of the International Academy of Astronautics, an organism whose research task on the facts that have given place to the current status of rocketry and space research has become one of the most expected events during the annual celebration of the Congress of the IAF, in this case held in Montreal, Canadá, in 1991.

Following the wealth of previous volumes, the book contains 15 of the articles presented en the symposium, conveniently adapted to the new printed media. Most of them, as is natural, cover the period after 1945, dealing with such interesting themes as the missile Navaho (a capital piece on which a good deal of the space propulsion technology was built), the engine of the Jupiter rocket, program Farside, the Vostok spaceship, the propulsion stage Coralie, the Vela satellites, the British rocket Black Arrow, etc. Yet also reference is made in other sections to the French rocketry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries or the contributions of Romanian scientists before WWII.

Certainly the divulgative task and historical research contributed by this series of volumes is absolutely vital to preserve the personality and identity of current astronautics. The thousands of pages published up to date are a true treasure of information that in many cases cannot be found mirrored in other sources, hence its importance.