Building a Space Station
This scene of astronauts
constructing a space station comes from the unreleased film Dream
of the
Stars, and provides just one of many
different views of space stations that appear in The
Complete
Book of Outer Space. Conceived as a
springboard for trips to the moon and planets, such stations
would function as platforms for building and launching large
space ships. Although much attention
was given in American space literature during the fifties to the
importance of building a manned
space station, this project became secondary to putting a man on
the moon by 1970 and achieving
President Kennedy's famous goal for America's space program. The
creation of huge rockets like
the Saturn V made a space station unnecessary as a stepping stone
to the moon.