Steam Powered Rocket

In 2021, I took some classes in publishing, which required that I learn how to use some printing equipment from the 1890s and earlier. Through this, I discovered the world of steam thresher's reunions: annual regional meetings of steam engine enthusiasts that draw thousands across the upper midwest. Combined with news stories about various billionaires funding space travel, I found myself wondering what space travel might be like if the space race happened several decades earlier. What if the same technology that modernized agriculture took us to the moon? What might rockets powered by steam sound like? Steam Powered Rocket is a bit of alternate history, taking us from liftoff to orbit and back to earth.