Where can I find information on space navigation, and the people who pioneered it?

Question

I'm doing a paper for school about space navigation. It's an interesting subject, but upon searching google, all I could find were non-detailed explanations of astrophysics that I think are meant for children, and a few somewhat-more-detailed articles about other subjects.

I remember learning about the subject in high school physics class, and I remember there were people that were credited for there work in space exploration. Who are those people?

My paper is specifically about 'navigating', ie determining when to leave the Earth, where the spacecraft is headed, and where certain astronomical objects will be when the spacecraft gets there. I'm looking for articles (or any information) on the work that goes into that, and the people who should be credited for that work, and for pioneering it.

Answer 1

A good source is likely to be NASA - have a look through The Basics of Space Flight for some starting pointers on what is required and how that work is done at NASA for each mission.

Answer 2

If you're looking for who figured out the best way to get between locations, Walter Hohmann worked out the standard set of basic transfer orbits in the first part of the 20th century.