Takeoff (Doubleday science fiction)
by Cyril M. Kornbluth
Category: Authors, American

"The brilliant young ceramics engineer and former government scientist, Dr. Michael Novak, stumbled into a storm center of intrigue and violence when he accepted employment with the widely derided American Society for Space Flight. By taking this job he unwittingly detonated a series of exciting events involving two beautiful women, high figures in Washington, espionage, and murder, all of which were to culminate in man's first voyage to the moon. In the desert south of Barstow, California, the A.S.F.S.F. was building a space ship, purportedly for research purposes, but as Novak commenced his assigned experiments he detected many incongruous facts about the project. He soon began to suspect that the construction of the ship was being subsidized by a foreign power, and he confided his fears to a fellow engineer. Within twenty-four hours this confidant had been killed. In the fateful days to follow, as Novak sought further to substantiate his suspicions, he unmasked a lovely spy and thwarted a gigantic political smear. And finally he risked his own life and that of the woman he loved to assure for the United States a vital first foothold in outer space."--Fantastic fiction.