This book is just stunning! It's the primer for... The Conquest of Space. And, more than Robert Heinlein's "Rocketship Galileo", this is the inspiration for the film "Destination Moon".
Scores of Chesley Bonestell paintings, more than a dozen in color, depict the Moon and planets of the solar system as they were believed to be in the late '40s and the single-stage-to-orbit atomic rocket (with wings for re-entry), with which we might reach them.
The text by Willy Ley explains it all, lucidly and entertainingly.

This must have been my first "adult" book, given me when I was around 8. It may have set me on the course towards rabid sf fandom and what for a while was a concentration in science and mathematics (later exchanged for languages). The planetary science is horribly obsolete, of course, but the Bonestell illustrations are gorgeous and the book is a very nice publishing job.