The Moonraker

Many of us read James Bond while we were at school in the 1960's when the Bond films were being released. A smaller number of us also read sf, including Poul Anderson. There was a time when I was unclear about the difference between Bond and sf. The Bond series included one volume called Moonraker, about a rocket... maybe for travel to the Moon? (No, but I did not know that yet.) Reusable rockets were used for antipodal and interplanetary travel in Robert Heinlein's Future History. I had not yet learned that Anderson also wrote future histories.

A scientist briefing Bond on the Moonraker tells him that powerful rockets are:

"'...for the scientists, chiefly desirable as a step towards escape from the earth.'"

-Ian Fleming, Moonraker (London, 1974), p. 72.

That is the way to go. Bond wants Moonraker for Britain's independent nuclear deterrent. 

I think that that is the only reference to space travel in Ian Fleming's works.

Read Fleming about his period, then Anderson about past, future and alternative history.