Rocket Science

Haley's Rocketry and Space Exploration was published in 1958, with the sub-title The International Story. This work is commendable in connection with the history of rocketry, but it is also one of the very few sources in English in which one can find details about the emergence of non-governmental astronautical organizations around the world following the Second World War.

Doyle, Stephen E. "Andrew G. Haley." Pioneers of Space Law: A Publication of the International Institute of Space Law, edited by Stephan Hobe, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013, pp. 71-98.

Rocketry and Space Exploration, cover

Rocketry and Space Exploration, page 152

Rocketry and Space Exploration, page 244

Frontier to Space is a compendium of the advance of rocketry in general and upper-atmosphere research in particular.

Harth, Erich. "Frontier to Space." Physics Today vol. 9, no.8, 1956, pp. 36.

For more, see MIT Libraries' 150 Years in the Stacks entry.

Frontier to Space, frontispiece

Frontier to Space, page 27

Another competent journalistic survey of mankind's most recent attempts to make human space flight an ultimate reality. It [Outward Bound for Space] summarizes briefly for the layman the early history of rocketry and all its developments since the last war and includes descriptions of rocket fuels; radiation belts, guidance procedures, testing methods. A technical background is not essential for comprehension.

Kirkus Reviews (1961)

Outward Bound for Space, page 59

Outward Bound for Space, page 93

Outward Bound for Space, pages 132-133

Outward Bound for Space, page 144

Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics is a short, modestly technical introduction to space exploration written by Arthur C. Clarke, and published in 1950. It includes material accessible to readers with a high-school level of science and technical education, covering the elements of orbital mechanics, rocket design and performance, various applications of Earth satellites, a discussion of the more interesting and accessible destinations in the Solar System (such as they were understood at the time of writing), and in a final chapter covering the rationale and value of human expansion off the Earth.

"Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics." Wikepedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Flight:_An_Introduction_to_Astronautics