Step to the stars (Paperback Library SF 52-955)

but he was young man and found it hard to keep down a job. Without a job he didn't have the money needed to go to Central Tech and learn rocketry.Now he is offered a job. A dangerous job to work in space, to build the US's first space station. The station, armed with missiles, would defend the free world against enemy nations, including the "evil" Combine. Maybe Jim can also learn how to pilot a rocket while working on the station?Yet not only are there 'strange' accidents, but in the end somebody leaks the knowledge of the project to the world. Will the station be completed or will the World Congress (I wonder what it was based on?), under pressure from the other nations, bring the operation to a halt?Early example of good "hard" science fiction if slightly outdated in some of the details.