Biography:

Educator, consultant. Born– Dec. 22, 1924, in Knoxville, Tenn. Parents– Mitchell R. and Katie Grace (Hill) Sharpe. Married– Virginia Ruth Lowry on Dec. 21, 1952. Children– Three. Education– Alabama Polytechnic Institute, B.S., M.A.; studied at Emory University. Instructor at Auburn University; technical writer and supervisor of technical writers at Marshall Space Flight Center; consultant and historian at National Air and Space Museum, Washington, and at Alabama Space and Rocket Center; associate editor of Space Journal, 1957-1959; contributor to serials and yearbooks. Won Robert H. Goddard Essay Award in history of rocketry, 1968, 1975; awarded Tsiolkkovsky Gold Medal of USSR, 1972.

Source:

Contemporary Authors, Vol. 29R; Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, 1976.

Publication(s):

Development of the Lifesaving Rocket; a Study in 19th Century Technical Fallout. Marshall Space Flight Center, Ala.; George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, 1969.

Dividends from Space. New York; Crowell, 1971.

“It Is I, Sea Gull;” Valentina Tereshkova, First Woman in Space. New York; Crowell, 1975.

Living in Space; the Astronaut and His Environment. New York; Doubleday, 1969.

The Rocket Team. New York; Crowell, 1979.

Satellites and Probes; the Development of Unmanned Space Flight. New York; Doubleday, 1970.

Yuri Gagarin; First Man in Space. Huntsville, Ala.; Strode, 1969.

Joint_Publication(s):

Applied Astronautics; an Introduction to Space Flight. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice Hall, 1963.

Basic Astronautics; an Introduction to Space Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; Prentice Hall, 1962.