 It was probably most popular as a part of the Winston Juvenile Science Fiction set which included 36 books by such authors as Arthur C. Clarke, Ben Bova, Poul Andersen, including five by del Rey.The dust jacket features an illustration by 5-time Hugo award winner Ed Emshwiller.Fred Halpern, a young man with a gift for mentally calculating trajectories and orbits is expelled from the Goddard Space Academy a week before graduation due to his long history of insubordination and lack of discipline.