NASA's John F. Kennedy Center was the stage for the American adventure in space. Sprawled across 140,000 acres on Florida's Atlantic coast, it has hosted the succession of rocket launches that have rewritten our knowledge of aeronautics and our very understanding of the nature of the universe. This illustrated history includes: the earliest development of rockets in the United States and Germany; the missile race and the US-Soviet rivalry to be first in space; the great Apollo programme and the race to the Moon; the shuttle programme, the Space Station and the Hubble Telescope; the future of space exploration; and an insider's history of the heart of America's Space programme from its earliest days. It is clearly written, meticulously researched and packed with 150 spectacular full colour and archive photographs. It is written by a leading expert in space exploration and the author of the "New York Times" No.1 bestseller "Star Wars: Episode 1, the Visual Dictionary".