Historical Books

Report copyright infringementby John Carter (Author), Robert Anton Wilson (Introduction by)In his short 37 years, John Whiteside "Jack" Parsons embodied at least several different roles in one tormented but glorious life. By day, Parsons' unorthodox genius created a solid rocket fuel that helped the Allies win World War II and NASA send spacecraft to the moon. Co-founder of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Aerojet Corporation, a lunar crater was named after Parsons. By night, Parsons called himself The Antichrist when he performed Aleister Crowley's Thelemic rituals to create a new sort of human being that would finally destroy Christianity. In a Pasadena mansion, the dark, handsome Parsons hosted soirees for the emerging literature of science fiction, visited by writers such as Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and none other than L. Ron Hubbard, who later founded the Church of Scientology. With Hubbard playing his "Scribe," Parsons enacted dark "Babalon" rituals to help foment a new occult age. Jack Parsons died suddenly in a huge, mysterious explosion that even today cannot be definitively explained. Was it murder? Suicide? Or just an accident? Feral House's paperback edition adds new photographs and an Afterword about Parsons' "Black Pilgrimage." One of the inspirations for hit television series, "Strange Angels." Number of Pages: 239 Dimensions: 0.65 x 8.56 x 5.56 IN Illustrated: Yes Publication Date: April 01, 2005

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Created in partnership with the world-renowned Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, this beautifully packaged, informative card deck captures, in words and stunning photographs, 100 of the museum's most important artifacts.The NASM is the world's largest, most-visited collection of historical aircraft and spacecraft, and commemorate major milestones in flight and space exploration. The 100 treasures in this deck, hand-selected by the curators, include the Spirit of St. Louis, flown by Charles Lindbergh on the first non-stop transatlantic flight; Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1, in which he broke the sound barrier; Buzz Aldrin's space suit, worn during the Apollo 11 mission, and the Space Shuttle Discovery, which flew 39 missions and spent 365 days in space. Each card includes a photograph of the object on the front and a 200-word description plus key data on the back.

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In April of 2003, a company called Scaled Composites lifted the veil of secrecy from a longtime research program and introduced SpaceShipOne to the world. And the age of commercial space travel took off... like a rocket. This book chronicles the development of the world’s first commercial manned space program--aprogram that includes an airborne launcher (the White Knight), a space ship (SpaceShipOne), rocket propulsion, avionics, simulator, and full ground support. With ample illustrations, photographs, and behind-the-scenes information, SpaceShipOne provides a full picture of this classified project--from the conception and design to the deals that brought together Scaled Composites’ Burt Rutan and Virgin Airlines’ Sir Richard Branson to the plans for building a fleet of commercial suborbital spaceships and launch aircraft.The story of SpaceShipOne combines the adventurous spirit of Charles Lindbergh, the entrepreneurial drive of Howard Hughes, and the urgency of the space race at the height of the Cold War. Author Dan Linehan, who was there at the launch, lets readers in on the drama and details behind the making of spaceships that will take twenty-first-century tourists to the final frontier.Features a never-before-seen cockpit diagram, created especially for this book, identifying all seventy of SpaceShipOne’s instruments and controls.

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