Two decades before the founding of NASA, a group of amateur rocketry enthusiasts from Paisley experimented with a new technology that would one day prove vital in putting man on the Moon.
Formed in 1936, The Paisley Rocketeer Society pushed the boundaries of science with their experiments in rocket propulsion in the parks and open spaces of Renfrewshire.
They were led by local space enthusiast John Stewart, who, along with his brother Peter, and many friends and other like-minded individuals, became the first to develop the three-stage rocket system that is now considered essential for space flight.
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Of course, the Rocketeers were not experimenting with anything close to the scale of the Saturn V rocket that NASA would one day have at their disposal. The projectiles the Paisley group dabbled with were tiny and not much bigger than a modern commercial firework.
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Nonetheless, the discoveries they made in the name of amateur science were considerable.
Building on the work of earlier rocketry experts, the Rocketeers sent "rocket mail" on short journeys, with the recovered letters and franked mail parachuted to the ground and sold to collectors for local charitable causes. In later tests, they also pushed the technological limits of the era by strapping cameras to their projectiles and capturing aerial views.
And while their rockets may have only reached a few hundred feet in the air above Paisley, the concepts they demonstrated - particularly the three-stage launch technique - were exactly what mankind needed to get to the Moon.
In spite of their pioneering discoveries, the Paisley Rocketeers group would prove short-lived. They disbanded at the outbreak of the Second World War and would never get the recognition they so richly deserved.
By the start of the space race in the late 1950s, NASA was oblivious to John Stewart and his Paisley cohorts, and instead enlisted the expertise of German rocket engineers such as former Nazi Party member Dr Wernher von Braun, who had designed the V-2 rocket.
In his new book, Scotland's Wings, renowned author and historian Robert Jeffrey says the Paisley Rocketeers' achievements were remarkable and ponders what might have happened had NASA backed them with their billions.
"Far-fetched as it sounds," writes Jeffrey, "the Paisley Rocketeers were the first to use what is now accepted rocket practice - the three-stage rocket. They demonstrated a concept and the realisation that most of the power used in the initial stage of a launch was dead weight that should be discarded shortly after lift-off, and subsequent stages ignited one after another.
"The story of this bunch of amateurs left me with the thought . . what could have happened if, rather than gather together a group of Nazi war criminals to help them in the Space Race, America had shipped the Paisley Rocketeers to Houston and Florida en mass and set them to work backed by the billions of US tax dollars."
The Paisley Rocketeers vanished from the radar until their 30th anniversary when Margaret Morris, one of the original founders, revived the society.
Scotland's Wings (Black and White Publishing) by Robert Jeffrey was released on September 15. You can pre-order copies here.
As he details the records of flight in Scotland, Jeffrey charts the risks, victories and disasters undertaken by pilots, engineers and heroes of Scottish aviation. People who put aside their careers, relationships and in some cases even their lives to continue the advancement of modern air flight.
Robert Jeffrey is a long-serving Glasgow journalist and the former managing editor of the Herald group of newspapers. His many best-sellers include Glasgow's Hard Men, Glasgow's Godfather and Gentle Johnny Ramensky.
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Glasgow author lifts lid on historic air show that attracted huge crowds in 1910
