Asif A. Siddiqi

NASA History Office

The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974

Challenge to Apollo

Based on new Russian sources, Siddiqi's book reveals the truth about the Soviet space program to tell a technical, political, and personal history of the major Soviet initiatives. Photos & illustrations.

Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge

An academic study on the birth of the Soviet space program, situating the birth of cosmic enthusiasm within Russian and Soviet history.

Spaceflight and the Russian Imagination, 1857-1957

The Red Rockets' Glare

James T. Andrews

The launch of the Sputnik satellite in October 1957 changed the course of human history. In the span of a few years, Soviets sent the first animal into space, the first man, and the first woman. These events were a direct challenge to the United States and the capitalist model that claimed ownership of scientific aspiration and achievement. Into the Cosmos shows us the fascinating interplay of Soviet politics, science, and culture during the Khrushchev era, and how the space program became a binding force between these elements.

Space Exploration and Soviet Culture

Into the Cosmos

United States. NASA History Program Office

This is a completely updated and revised version of a monograph published in 2002 by the NASA History Office under the original title Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes, 1958-2000. This new edition not only adds all events in robotic deep space exploration after 2000 and up to the end of 2016, but it also completely corrects and updates all accounts of missions from 1958 to 2000--Provided by publisher.

A Chronicle of Deep Space Exploration, 1958-2016

Beyond Earth

A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes, 1958-2000

Deep Space Chronicle

The book received the Emme Award for Astronautical Literature at the March 20 2000 luncheon of the Goddard Memorial Symposium, sponsored by the American Astronautical Society. Named in honor of the first NASA Historian, Eugene Emme, the Emme award was created in 1982 to annually recognize an outstanding book that increases public understanding of the past and potential impact of the field of astronautics.

Nasa History Division

First published in 2002 as volume 24 in the NASA "Monograph in Aerospace History" series. This study contains photographs and illustrations.

A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes 1958-2000. Monograph in Aerospace History, No. 24, 2002 (NASA Sp-2002-4524)

Winner of the Emme Award for Astronautical Literature, 2001 "The essential reference work for Soviet/Russian space history . . . for anyone hoping to make sense of the too many 'truths' of Soviet Space history."--Journal of Military History "We finally have a definitive English-language history covering the first three decades of the Soviet Union's space program. Sixteen years in the making, Asif Siddiqi's amazingly detailed book provides a kaleidoscopic view of the technical and political evolution of Soviet missile and space projects. . . . a veritable gold-mind of factual information."--Air Power History "An extraordinary volume. . . . This is not simply an account of one side of the space race. It is nothing less than the first full-scale, detailed explanation of how and why the Soviet Union led the world into space. It belongs on the shelf of every historian with an interest in flight, technology and politics, the Cold War, or any one of a score of related topics."--The Public Historian "No space buff's library will be complete without this book. Readers will marvel at the complex interactions between design bureaus, and will enjoy getting to know the people behind the failed Soviet effort--a vital step toward putting Apollo's victory in context."--Smithsonian Air and Space "Absolutely mandatory on the bookshelf of anyone interested in space."--Encyclopedia Astronautica First published by NASA in 2000 as Challenge to Apollo, these two volumes are the first comprehensive history of the Soviet-manned space programs covering a period of thirty years, from the end of World War II, when the Soviets captured German rocket technology, to the collapse of their moon program in the mid-1970s. The spectacular Soviet successes of Sputnik--the first Earth satellite (1957) and Yuri Gagarin--the first man in space (1961) shocked U.S. leaders and prompted President John F. Kennedy to set the goal of landing a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. The moon race culminated with the historic landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon in 1969 (coincidentally the first Soviet unmanned moon probe crashed on its surface while the American astronauts were at Tranquility Base). The epic story of the Soviet space program remained shrouded in secrecy until the unprecedented opening of top secret documents. Based almost entirely on these Russian-language sources and numerous interviews with veterans, Siddiqi's book breaks through the rumors, hearsay, and speculation that characterized books on the Soviet space program published during the Cold War years. Supplementing the text with dozens of previously classified photographs, he weaves together the technical, political, and personal history of the major Soviet space programs, providing the other side of the history of human space flight. Asif A. Siddiqi is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Carnegie Mellon University.

Asif A. Siddiqi

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