Author Spotlight: Walter Sierra

Beyond the Saga of Rocket Science is a series of four closely related books that provide an amply–illustrated, overarching perspective to a broad, non–technical audience of the entire panorama surrounding the development of rockets, missiles, and space vehicles as we know them today and what the exciting future holds. The books are sequential and form an integrated whole: The Dawn of the Space Age Avoiding Armageddon In Space To Stay The Never-Ending Frontier The Dawn of the Space Age begins with exciting tales of the earliest developers of rudimentary rockets and the deadly battles they fought in China between 228 and 1600 A.D. A historical fiction approach brings long–ago characters and events to life. Palace intrigues, treachery, and warmongering are interwoven with vivid depictions of courage and bravery to showcase the gradual progression of the science of rocketry from fireworks displays to effective weapons in the battlefield. Readers in the West will learn something about the Eastern mindset, where over half the world’s population lives today. The tremendous achievements of the Wright Brothers – Wilbur and Orville – in the early 1900s serve as a useful backdrop for showcasing the difficulties in developing completely new technologies for practical use. The Wright Brothers had to go abroad to France before World War I to garner enough support and funding to mature airplane science to the point that the U.S. Army took notice. Building on the Wrights’ successes, Ludwig Prandtl in Germany and Theodore von Kármán in the United States made pioneering developments in aerodynamics which are crucial to rocket flight.