A very interesting book on how the Americans developed their space technology and advanced as a superpower. I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in space exploration and technology.

I really liked the idea behind this book, I have been interested in space and all things associated with it now for several years and I am always keen to read any new releases as I do find it fascinating.

I, along with most people who have an interest in the topic will be aware, I would assume, of the background to who really was the main player behind the development of getting the United States to the Moon and that he was a former member of the Nazi party and had been the lead on the development of their V2 “vengeance weapons”.

I liked the order that the book followed and that it was chronological in terms of the development and the different victories that were achieved initially by the USSR and then by the United States which culminated and peaked with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landing and taking the first steps on the Moon.

The details shared on Operation Paperclip were great, very informative and you don’t get bogged down in too much detail. The chapters are concise, and the detail shared is key to the topic and I did learn quite a bit from that section which I really enjoyed.

I will say that the author quite clearly has a bit of a “dislike” towards Wernher von Braun who was technically a civilian scientist alongside being in the Nazi Party and that did come across in the book on several occasions, but he has back up the reasons why, including expanding on the details of the attempts made to rehabilitate him and to be honest it didn’t put me off reading the book.

As with the author, I will be honest that I do have my own views and I do think that von Braun should really have been tried with the other members of his party as it was his V2 rocket development that caused thousands of deaths, not only from those that were on the receiving end of the rocket, but those forced to work as slave labour during the construction and development. I think that the book could well be an eye opener for quite a few people.

I thought that this book was an easy read, the chapters were well laid out and the photographs and images used really linked the past of the development to the future and the ultimate target, which was landing on the Moon, and beating the USSR to it. It is 5 stars from me for this one.

I have just finished my read of David Axe's "Black Space: The Nazi Weapons That Launched Humanity Into Orbit" (graciously provided to me in the form of an ARC by Pen and Sword). I initially harbored some concerns as I began my perusal of the author's decidedly opinionated approach to the Nazi influence on the course of world history centered on the controversial figure of Wernher von Braun, the technocrat who was at the center of rocket development in the Third Reich and later in the United States. However, I am delighted to say that the author made some important points as he developed his arguments. I am particularly fascinated by the intersection of the American rehabilitation of von Braun as a pragmatic devotee of space exploration with little to do with the horrendous excesses of the Third Reich and its influence on the development of rocket development and space exploration in the postwar world. Von Braun was eager to assist in this project as a way to increase his influence on the development of space exploration as well as in his own interests. His insinuation into American culture, with the assistance of Walt Disney among others, was instrumental in focusing American efforts on the peaceful development of space exploration as though that was all he had ever cared about. This worked to conceal and obfuscate Operation Paperclip, with its wholesale rehabilitation of any number of dubious servants of the Reich. The irony of this was not lost on this reader as von Braun championed the development of increasingly powerful rockets derived from his initial work on the infamous Nazi rocket known generally as the V2. In the bureaucratic morass surrounding space exploration and militarization, von Braun's "apparent" shared vision of the peaceful use of his rockets facilitated the creation of NASA and civilian dominance of rocketry as opposed to the Navy and Air Force with their more blatantly military applications. This is a point often overlooked in the literature on the subject which tends to ignore just how much this "vision" obscured von Braun's very questionable record in his service to the Reich. His apparent concern with the U.S. dominance of the so called "space race" with the Soviet Union was very much in his own self interest. Keep in mind that even most of the people who founded the Soviet space program were former colleagues of his using the V2 and their work on it for the Reich as a starting point. By placing himself firmly at the center of the U.S. race into space, he managed to obfuscate his wartime record and his obvious ties to the Nazi regime. Again, what I find most fascinating here is the way that his self serving approach led the U.S. away from an openly militarized space race towards a more seemingly benign model. This despite his wartime record! This line of thought, in itself, justifies perusal of this book and some careful reanalysis of the "space race" and the fascist influence, directly and indirectly, on its development. It is well worth the read.