Aerospace at Troynovant:
winging and thrusting into Air & Space;
visionaries, scientists, & engineers
and the development of designs & vehicles;
listed by Title
  

Naturally the fact that so much that was theory is now reality has changed the public attitude. When I wrote about the idea of space travel in 1944 I felt it was necessary to put considerable emphasis on the fact that I was serious. Every sentence which was not strictly historical was carefully weighed; I wanted to impress upon the reader that the people who had thought about space travel were people who knew how to think. This is now generally taken for granted.

The question is no longer whether space-travel theory is serious, or whether it is correct. The question now is simply how soon engineering practice will catch up with existing theory.

Willy Ley
"Foreword"
Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel  (1951)

  
[Westminster, London.]

Warwick:

Be patient, princes; you do know these fits
Are with his highness very ordinary.
Stand from him, give him air: he'll straight be well.

William Shakespeare
2 Henry IV, 4.3.114-116

  
[ After discussing Johann Kepler's connection of flight and Lunar colonization in Somnium (1608; published 1634) being picked up by John Wilkins in his The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638), Nicolson goes on: ]

I am quite convinced that great stimulus to what we call "aviation" came about in the seventeenth century because of this very belief that the first nation to discover the principle of flight would be the first to plant its flag on the moon — and even on the planets. One country jealously watched the aeronautical progress of another. ...

As our voyagers mount up into the ether, we shall hear more of the rivalry between nations, for the moon was to be claimed in turn by Spaniards, Italians, Dutch, and many others beside the British. Every time I have discovered another picture of the moon-world I have first looked eagerly to see which flag floats over its territory. Neither England nor Germany nor any other nation has yet succeeded in that early hope of moon colonization. But if ever a planet rocket is perfected or Major de Seversky's space ship becomes as feasible as he thinks it plausible, this motif will return again to literature, as to politics and economics, and what once was satire or romance will become a matter of profound national and international importance.

Marjorie Hope Nicolson
Voyages to the Moon  (1948)

  
The advance probes formed an ingenious approach to the problem of getting a man further out in space than any man had been before, but it was horribly risky. But apparently the Russians could afford to take such risks. The Americans couldn't. They had a settled policy of spending a dollar instead of a man. It was humanitarian, but it had one drawback. There was a tendency to keep on spending dollars and not ever let a man take a chance.

Murray Leinster
The Wailing Asteroid  (1960)