Chasing the Moon: How America Beat Russia in the Space Race

Carl Sagan, would later speak of reading Interplanetary Flight as the “turning point in my scientific development,”

He loved reading stories in the American magazines that asked “What if?” and subtly questioned conventionally accepted assumptions and rules—both scientific and cultural.

Far less renowned than the Hollywood Ten or writers like Howard Fast or Arthur Miller, David Lasser, one of the country’s first space advocates and the author of The Conquest of Space, became one of the first victims of the Red Scare.