Blast Off at Woomera

Blast Off at Woomera is a children's science fiction novel, the first in the Chris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A. series by British author Hugh Walters. It was published in the UK by Faber in 1957, in the USA by Criterion Books in 1958 (under the title Blast Off at 0300), and in the Netherlands in 1960 by Prisma Juniores (under the title Ruimtevaarder nummer één -- Astronaut Number One).

Blast Off at Woomera
First edition
AuthorHugh Walters
Cover artistLeslie Wood
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SeriesChris Godfrey of U.N.E.X.A
GenreScience fiction novel
PublisherFaber
Publication date
1957
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages187
OCLC30163717
823.91
Followed byThe Domes of Pico 

The books are now quite collectable, changing hands for sums around £50-£100 or more on book trading sites.

Plot summary

Strange objects have been sighted on the Moon near Mons Pico. Suspecting a communist plot, the British Government hurriedly plans a mission to photograph the domes from above closer range. The rocket is not large enough to send a man - enter Chris Godfrey, a 17-year-old science whiz with an interest in rocketry and crucially less than 5 feet tall!

The launch site is Woomera Rocket Research Station in South Australia, but there may be a Soviet traitor amongst the ground crew...

The book pre-dates the first actual usage of satellite imagery by two years, and manned spaceflight by four years.

Reception

Floyd C. Gale of Galaxy Science Fiction rated the book five stars out of five for children, stating that it "includes plenty of action and international intrigue. Plausible and detailed, it is a juvenile Prelude to Space".[1]

gollark: Yes, it was.
gollark: Oh, those are neat. I've seen one in a kilobyte or so of JS.
gollark: ```haskell#!/usr/bin/env bashsource math.shint radius = 4.5;area = radius * math.PI * math.pi ** 2;printf '%f' % area;```
gollark: You need a format string for printf, silly.
gollark: Now cease this.

References
  1. Gale, Floyd C. (October 1960). "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 142–146.


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