Race Beyond the Sky

On the night of October 4, 1957, a Soviet rocket lifted a polished metal sphere into orbit, and the beep of Sputnik told the world that the space age had begun - and that the Cold War had a new front, in the sky. In barely a dozen years, two superpowers would carry human beings off the Earth for the first time and set their boots upon the Moon.This is the whole sweep, told in a single volume and from both sides: the lonely dreamers and the slave-built V-2 that gave both nations their first rockets; the shock of Sputnik and the birth of NASA; Gagarin's single orbit and Kennedy's audacious gamble; the methodical American climb through Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo while the secret Soviet program squandered its early lead; the years when the race killed - the Apollo 1 fire, the death of Korolev, the loss of Komarov and Gagarin; the triumph of Apollo 11 before a watching world; and the 1975 handshake in orbit that brought the contest to its close.Sober, sourced, and sweeping, this is a clear-eyed popular history of the most extraordinary competition of the twentieth century - how it came, how it was waged, who won and who lost and why, and what it built that outlived the rivalry that paid for it.

On the night of October 4, 1957, a Soviet rocket lifted a polished metal sphere into orbit, and the beep of Sputnik told the world that the space age had begun - and that the Cold War had a new front, in the sky. In barely a dozen years, two superpowers would carry human beings off the Earth for the first time and set their boots upon the Moon.This is the whole sweep, told in a single volume and from both sides: the lonely dreamers and the slave-built V-2 that gave both nations their first rockets; the shock of Sputnik and the birth of NASA; Gagarin's single orbit and Kennedy's audacious gamble; the methodical American climb through Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo while the secret Soviet program squandered its early lead; the years when the race killed - the Apollo 1 fire, the death of Korolev, the loss of Komarov and Gagarin; the triumph of Apollo 11 before a watching world; and the 1975 handshake in orbit that brought the contest to its close.Sober, sourced, and sweeping, this is a clear-eyed popular history of the most extraordinary competition of the twentieth century - how it came, how it was waged, who won and who lost and why, and what it built that outlived the rivalry that paid for it.