Customer Reviews

Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge

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3 star:		(1)
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Asif Siddiqi covers the first laps of the space race from the Soviet side. This tome goes deeper than just the hardware by covering some of the personalities involved on the Soviet side of the space industry. If you are interested in the history of early space exploration, this book fills in many of the holes that most Western histories leave unexplored.

Great book, which describes the development the entire Soviet space program, its virtues and flaws!
A great book for those who want to know more background on this issue,
and a true story of what happened behind the "iron curtain"! Apology politics aside, but simply a chronic and very interesting history of this nation!

A book where every name ,situation,person is based in facts and books.
A book where author knows his sources and have a clear view of achivments and drawbacks of Soviet space programm
An author who can read Ruusian and have of net contact of the sources
I found the style of language difficult but fluid.

This book covers the soviet space/rocket program from it's infancy (before and following WWII) all the way to Kolarov's death. It does so in what I would call, pure history book style, or 'just the facts please'. I did find it to be VERY informative after reading for years on the US space program to hear how the soviet program was actually done was a real eye opener for sure and it will keep you going for that next page/chapter in that respect. What it was lacking though was the story side. I had expected more on the missions themselves, more on the events that had occurred during the missions, how they were solved, etc. 95% of the book covers the developement of the vehicles and the in-fighting of the soviet space program and it's personalities, not very much on the actual development and any issues that would arise during. It was the ICBM program that kept the soviet space program alive during these times and much of the book is devoted to this. I was expecting more a book on the soviet space program, it's missions, and the people involved including more on the cosmonauts and the race with the US.

If you are looking for an easier, more back-story type read on the soviet space program, this is not for you. If you are heavily into the space program and it's total history, this will definitely fit the bill there.