Re: Books on space program and moon landing



rob.langenderfer@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
I'll be eager to hear your thoughts. (I have read some
others, but I don't want to prejudice people's opinions, so I'm
staying quiet for now.)

For the history of the Soviet space program, it's hard to beat "Challenge To Apollo" by Asif Siddiqi, which is available as a free PDF download - although it takes a while to download, as it's a very big book (over 1,000 pages): http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20000088626_2000122281.pdf
Other ones I enjoyed were "Korolev" by James Harford (ISBN 0-471-14853-9, 1997), which is the story of the head of the Soviet manned space program; "The Heavens And The Earth" by Walter A. McDougall (ISBN 0-465-02887-X, 1985) which is the story behind the politics of early space exploration; and "Dragonfly" by Bryan Burrough (ISBN 0-88730-783-3, 1998) about the Shuttle missions to the Mir space station.
....and if you are into the history of rockets and spaceflight in fact and fiction for the past couple of thousand years (it starts in 360 BC), Ron Miller's huge and profusely illustrated "The Dream Machines" (ISBN 0-89464-039-9, 1993) which gives a year-by-year account of how the concept of spaceflight came about, and the machines intended to do it (if you are looking for some obscure space project from NASA or the aerospace industry in the 1940's - 1980s, this is the first place to go to). This is just about the perfect book to kill a few hours with on a rainy day as its chronological layout means it can be just picked up and dived into at any point.

Pat
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: nbc Obamamania nbc
    ... the Berlin Wall (I don't know how credible such allegations are or ... Cuban Missile Crisis - I think he had the right idea that the colonial ... the space program (not because it is easy but because it is ... for getting a sense from those who lived through various times in history). ...
    (rec.music.artists.springsteen)
  • Re: NASA PDF Mercury, Gemini, Apollo reports free online
    ... A history of Apollo launch facilities and operations ... Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference - Orloff, ... Civil Space Program; Volume 5; Exploring the Cosmos ... 50 Years at the NASA Dryden Flight Research ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: Democratic Party may not be around much longer
    ... The Space Program has been described as the greatest public works project since the Great Pyramids.* However, unlike the Pyramids, the Space Program delivered and continues to deliver a myriad of technologies that we take for granted but which are in fact giant leaps in the history of technological progress. ...
    (alt.sports.basketball.nba.la-lakers)
  • Re: Lame NewsGroups-Feminists
    ... > Jill writes: ... >>>on the history of the Soviet space program. ... Life. ...
    (soc.men)
  • robotics
    ... What's the history behind robotics in the military? ... Is it an offshoot of ... the space program? ...
    (sci.space.history)