Project Mercury: NASA's First Manned Space Programme [Hardcover]

A developmental history of the first American manned spaceflight programme and its associated infrastructure, including accounts of space launch vehicles. The book highlights the differences in Redstone/Atlas technology, drawing similar comparisons between ballistic capsules and alternative types of spacecraft. The book also covers astronaut selection and training, as well as tracking systems, flight control, basic principles of spaceflight and detailed accounts of individual flights.Part 1. Genesis:
1. Preparing for War. 2. Dreaming of Space. 3. The Satellite Race. 4. Defining the Frontier. 5. New Broom.-
Part 2. Infrastructure:
1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 2. Astronauts. 3. Flight Operations Division. 4. World Wide Tracking Network. 5. Recovery.-
Part 3. Hardware:
1. Mercury Spacecraft. 2. Pressure Suit. 3. Mercury-Little Joe. 4. Mercury-Scout. 5. Mercury-Redstone. 6. Mercury-Atlas.-
Part 4. Individual Flight Accounts.-
Part 5. Results:
1. Scientific experiments. 2. Project Mercury in Retrospect. 3. Project Mercury as a First Step. 4. Alternative Paths. 5. Appendix.

From the reviews:

John Catchpoles new account of this pioneering project is most welcome. Catchpoles account is not so much a chronological history & as it is a description of the project and its various elements  though of course there is a lot of historical material in it. & So all in all you get a lot for your money in these 485 pages & . this is a very good book & . (David Maclennan, Liftoff, Issue 219, 2004)

This book describes the first US manned space program in sufficient detail, using not only NASA sources but also alternative sources. He has gathered all the information from the diverse places, sorted it out for us and has produced a history in sufficient detl³$