The essays on the early years of spaceflight that follow were originally presented at a conference on the history of space activity, held at Yale University February, 1981. The conference grew out of a course offered at Yale University in the fall of 1980 entitled "NASA and the Post-Sputnik Era." Jointly sponsored by Calhoun and Jonathan Edwards colleges in response to student interest, the course was quickly oversubscribed. Therefore, the first purpose of this conference was to provide a larger forum in which Yale students could observe-and participate in-informed discussions about United States space activity to date. The conference attracted a far wider and more diverse audience than expected. People from all over the country came to New Haven in a month when that city is not at its best, and participated actively in the conference and all activities related to it. These proceedings would no doubt be richer and more representative of the conference had it been possible to capture and transcribe much of the discussions about the formal papers. Papers included here are basically in the same form as originally presented, with only minor editorial revision.