The book presents an exhaustive history of the development of rocketry and astronautics in the United States. The narrative is built in the form of a fascinating story about why the Americans were only the second in space and the first on the Moon and Mars, who invented the cannon for firing into space, and was it possible to bomb Moscow from the Space Shuttle? All significant projects of American astronautics are described in as much detail as possible. The author is an adviser to the president of RSC Energia, the most famous popularizer of the achievements of domestic and world cosmonautics, the author of numerous publications on space topics.