My oldest book and a real treasure. I bought it at a W.H. Smith kiosk at Luton train station in late 1957 whilst on a daytrip to London with my family, and read it for the entire journey. To give some perspective, it was written before the first Sputnik was launched, so long ago that Arthur C. Clarke was still in his thirties. It is simultaneously prophetic and sadly mistaken. Clarke successfully predicted many aspects of the coming space race but like so many others, he envisaged a glamorous future in space that was never to materialize. ( )