Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program, but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoir of academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap. Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow. Thirty years later, he was deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the mysterious "Chief Designer" Sergey Korolev. Chertok's 60-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People. In these writings, spread over four volumes (volumes two through four are forthcoming), academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a society's quest to explore the cosmos. This book was edited by Asif Siddiqi, a historian of Russian space exploration, and General Tom Stafford contributed a foreword touching upon his significant work with the Russians on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Overall, this book is an engaging read while also contributing much new material to the literature about the Soviet space program.
Volume 3 of the memoirs of Academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian. Covers the history of the Soviet space program from 1961 to 1967.
Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoirs of Academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap. This official NASA history series document has been converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. In this Volume 2, Chertok takes up the story with the development of the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and ends with the launch of Sputnik and the early Moon, Mars, and Venus probes. His engaging accounts of these dramatic and historic years reveal repeated failures, technical problems, and governmental struggles that marked the opening of the space race in the Soviet Union. An extensive technical discussion provides new details about the tragic Nedelin Disaster in October 1960 which killed over 100 workers attempting to launch an ICBM. Chertok calls it most horrific disaster in the history of missile and space technology. Contents: Three New Technologies, Three State Committees * The Return * From Usedom Island to Gorodomlya Island * Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor * The Alliance with Science * Department U * Face to Face with the R-1 Missile * The R-1 Missile Goes Into Service * Managers and Colleagues * NII-885 and Other Institutes * Air Defense Missiles * Flying by the Stars * Missiles of the Cold War's First Decade * On the First Missile Submarine * Prologue to Nuclear Strategy * The Seven Problems of the R-7 Missile * The Birth of a Firing Range * 15 May 1957 * No Time for a Breather * Mysterious Illness * Breakthrough into Space * Flight-Development Tests Continue * The R-7 Goes into Service * From Tyuratam to the Hawaiian Islands and Beyond * Lunar Assault * Back at RNII * The Great Merger * First School of Control in Space * Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly to Koshka * The Beginning of the 1960s * "Onward to Mars...and Venus" * Catastrophes Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow. Twenty-seven years later, he became deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the mysterious "Chief Designer" Sergey Korolev. Chertok's sixty-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People. In these writings, spread over four volumes, Academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a society's quest to explore the cosmos. NASA issued a statement about the passing of this pioneer: Russian rocket designer Boris Yevseyevich Chertok, one of the founding fathers of the Russian space program, passed away on Dec. 14, 2011 at the age of 99. We share the loss of Boris Chertok with our Russian colleagues," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations. "He was he a spaceflight pioneer and an inspiration to everyone associated with spaceflight. I remember him coming into the control center in Moscow in the middle of the night at the age of 97. He was an inspiration to every flight controller in Moscow. I also remember fondly sitting in Korolev's apartment in Moscow, now a museum, and having Boris describe meetings with Korolev, the general designer, at his kitchen table. The passion in Boris' eyes and voice gave me a unique insight into the Russian team and operations. Boris's speech this year at the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight was amazing and awe inspiring. His books and memoirs are a true treasure. He was a friend of NASA and he will be missed. His spirit will live on in the hearts of the Russian and American human spaceflight team."
Rockets and Revolution offers a multifaceted study of the race toward space in the first half of the twentieth century, examining how the Russian, European, and American pioneers competed against one another in the early years to acquire the fundamentals of rocket science, engineer simple rockets, and ultimately prepare the path for human spaceflight. Between 1903 and 1953, Russia matured in radical and dramatic ways as the tensions and expectations of the Russian revolution drew it both westward and spaceward. European and American industrial capacities became the models to imitate and to surpass. The burden was always on Soviet Russia to catch up—enough to achieve a number of remarkable “firsts” in these years, from the first national rocket society to the first comprehensive surveys of spaceflight. Russia rose to the challenges of its Western rivals time and again, transcending the arenas of science and technology and adapting rocket science to popular culture, science fiction, political ideology, and military programs. While that race seemed well on its way to achieving the goal of space travel and exploring life on other planets, during the second half of the twentieth century these scientific advances turned back on humankind with the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile and the coming of the Cold War.
This classic on space travel was first published in 1953, when interplanetary space flight was considered science fiction by most of those who considered it at all. Here the German-born scientist Wernher von Braun detailed what he believed were the problems and possibilities inherent in a projected expedition to Mars. Today von Braun is recognized as the person most responsible for laying the groundwork for public acceptance of America's space program. When President Bush directed NASA in 1989 to prepare plans for an orbiting space station, lunar research bases, and human exploration of Mars, he was largely echoing what von Braun proposed in The Mars Project.
Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoir of Academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap. In Volume 1 of "Rockets and People," Chertok described his early life as an aeronautical engineer and his adventures as a member of the Soviet team that searched postwar, occupied Germany for the remnants of the Nazi rocket program. In Volume 2, Chertok takes up the story after his return to the Soviet Union in 1946, when Stalin ordered the foundation of the postwar missile program at an old artillery factory northeast of Moscow. Chertok gives an unprecedented view into the early days of the Soviet missile program. With a keen talent for combining technical and human interests, Chertok writes of the origins and creation of the Baykonur Cosmodrome in a remote desert region of Kazakhstan. He devotes a substantial portion of Volume 2 to describing the launch of the first Sputnik satellite and the early lunar and interplanetary probes designed under legendary Chief Designer Sergey Korolev in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He ends with a detailed description of the famous R-16 catastrophe known as the "Nedelin disaster," which killed scores of engineers during preparations for a missile launch in 1960.
How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive Beat America to the Moon. "Fascinating . . . packed with technical and historical detail for the space expert and enthusiast alike . . . Great stuff!"-New Scientist "In this exceptional book, James Harford pieces together a most compelling and well-written tale. . . . Must reading."-Space News. "Through masterful research and an engaging narrative style, James Harford gives the world its first in-depth look at the man who should rightly be called the father of the Soviet space program."-Norman R. Augustine, CEO, Lockheed Martin. "In Korolev, James Harford has written a masterly biography of this enigmatic 'Chief Designer' whose role the Soviets kept secret for fear that Western agents might 'get at' him."-Daily Telegraph. "Harford's fluency in Russian and his intimate knowledge of space technology give us insights that few, if any, Americans and Russians have had into this dark history of Soviet space."-Dr. Herbert Friedman, Chief Scientist, Hulburt Center for Space Research Naval Research Laboratory. "Reveals the complex, driven personality of a man who, despite unjust imprisonment in the Gulag, toiled tirelessly for the Soviet military industrial complex. . . . More than just a biography, this is also a history of the Soviet space program at the height of the Cold War. . . . Highly recommended."-Library Journal. "For decades the identity of the Russian Chief Designer who shocked the world with the launching of the first Sputnik was one of the Soviet Union's best-kept secrets. This book tells vividly the story of that man, Sergei Korolev, in remarkable detail, with many facts and anecdotes previously unavailable to the West."-Sergei Khrushchev, Visiting Senior Fellow, Center for Foreign Policy Development.
