by Donald Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A meticulous portrait of an unjustly neglected figure in the history of American science.
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A debut biography examines a groundbreaking rocket scientist.
It’s nearly impossible to overestimate the geopolitical significance of the intercontinental ballistic missile, a weapon that could deliver a catastrophic payload from the other side of the globe. The U.S. military, considering the pursuit of the missile quixotic, had essentially given up, but its development became imperative in the 1950s once the Soviet Union achieved one of its own. Karel Jan “Charlie” Bossart, trained as an aeronautical engineer, became the principal architect of the pertinent technology, briefly winning him some scientific acclaim. Bossart was born in Belgium, and his early experiences were formed by the convulsion that was World War I, and the ensuing German occupation of his homeland. He attended college in Brussels, and at the behest of his father obtained a degree in mining engineering. But he took an extracurricular course in aeronautical science, inspiring him to chase a master’s in the subject at MIT in defiance of his father. His true education in plane technology came after, at the Service Technique de l’Aéronautique Belge, and he then turned down a comfortable teaching job at Ghent University for an adventure in the United States. There he scored a job at the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, headed by one of the field’s greatest luminaries. Bossart would eventually work on a series of experimental planes during World War II, and would finally start to become acquainted with rocket technology, which had long been neglected in favor of heavy artillery as a tool of war. He ultimately headed Project Atlas, the scientific collaboration that produced America’s first ICBM. Mitchell’s historical research is impeccable, and his mastery of the relevant science is equally impressive. Especially considering the brevity of the work, it is remarkable in its scope; the author manages to provide brief histories of rocket technology, aeronautics, World War I and II, and the Cold War. Bossart emerges as a thoughtful innovator interested in much more than military supremacy: “Forget about the military applications of rockets for a minute, and think of all the peaceful applications: shooting mail from coast to coast by rocket, manned travel to Mars, interplanetary communications, better weather forecasting, detailed aerial maps.” Some of the science described is formidably difficult to comprehend, but Mitchell succeeds in making it as accessible as anyone could reasonably expect.
A meticulous portrait of an unjustly neglected figure in the history of American science.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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