Reaching for the Moon, Roger D. Launius
Reaching for the Moon, Roger D. Launius
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Reaching for the Moon
Short History of the Space Race

Author: Roger D. Launius

Narrator: Keith Sellon-Wright

Unabridged: 7 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/25/2019


Synopsis

Fifty years after the Moon landing, a new history of the space race explores the lives of both Soviet and American engineers.

At the dawn of the space age, technological breakthroughs in Earth orbit flight were both breathtaking feats of ingenuity and disturbances to a delicate global balance of power. In this short book, aerospace historian Roger D. Launius concisely and engagingly explores the driving force of this era: the race to the Moon. Beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957 and closing with the end of the Apollo program in 1972, Launius examines how early space exploration blurred the lines between military and civilian activities, and how key actions led to space firsts as well as crushing failures.

Launius places American and Soviet programs on equal footing—following American aerospace engineers Wernher von Braun and Robert Gilruth, their Soviet counterparts Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov—to highlight key actions that led to various successes, failures, and ultimately the American Moon landing.

About Roger D. Launius

Roger D. Launius retired in 2017 as the associate director for collections and curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. Between 1990 and 2002 he served as chief historian for NASA. He lives in Auburn, Alabama.


Reviews

Goodreads review by GrahamReads on June 23, 2024

Just finished: "Reaching for the Moon: A Short History of the Space Race" By: Roger D. Launius New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019. A small book with a big punch. The book charts the history of the space rase with the Soviet Union (although the latter denied that there was a competition after the......more

Goodreads review by Eric on August 02, 2022

Pretty good short overview of space race. I like his equal focus on American and Soviet space programs.......more