<p>Stepping Stones to the Stars is the story of manned spaceflight from its inception to the era of the Space Shuttle. It begins with a short history of the evolution of the rocket, before describing the first manned rocket flights by both the Americans and the Russians. There is also the little-known story of what is thought to be the earliest manned rocket flight, said to have taken place in 1933 on the island of Rügen in the Baltic under the c...