The Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens

I found that the reading and enjoyment of this book somewhat marred by the type of basic A level physics mistakes commonly made by my students when they do not consider the situation carefully. For example the centripetal force IS the force of gravity on the satellite or capsule, not just equal to it. Circular motion relies on unbalanced forces, in this case the centripetal force to accelerate the capsule towards the centre of the Earth; there is no outward force to be balanced and forces are not balanced by speed! I would have thought that these errors should have been spotted by the scientific proof-readers. The author undoubtedly has far greater literary skills than I, but in a science/technology based book the physics has to be correct. By all means read this book, it is paced well and as a story there is much to commend it.

Mills and Boon space history (0/0 people found this helpful)

I was really looking forward to this book, but it is a big disappointment.

I expect a hardback book of a TV series to be well illustrated, particularly if the BBC is involved, but there are very few pictures and those included are very well known. In particular, there is no photo of the Russian N-1 moon rocket, a major omission in a book on this subject surely.

The book does not appear to have been type set properly (or proof read properly?), because many, many words have extra hyphens inserted in them for no apparent reason, sometimes several on one page.

The language is, er, florid, purple, hyperbolic and more suited to a Mills and Boon bodice ripper than a serious biography. Try "... the wind dispersing their treasonable words into the vast Nordic sky". Way over the top, often.

Underneath all this is a good story, and some good information on von Braun and Korelev - which is why I gave it 2 stars. If this style is what you like add one star, if you are hoping for a serious history of the space race, subtract two.

race to space (1/1 people found this helpful)

Written to accompany the bbc series of the same name, this is a non fiction book that relates the story of the american and russian race to be furthest ahead with their space programme. Starting at the end of the second world war and ending with the first moon landing, it tells the story by focussing on the two chief designers, von braun in america and korolev in russia.

Having seen and liked the tv series I thought this would just be a retread of that and I wouldn't get anything else out of it, but it turned to be quite an engrossing read. The style of the writing is good enough to make this work as a book in it's own right, rather than just a transcript of the tv show. An enjoyable and engrossing read.

Space Race (0/0 people found this helpful)

It was the greatest race of the 20th century ... the race to rule the heavens ... a race between the two superpowers, Russia and the USA. It is an explosive thriller of international espionage and treachery. A dual biography of two driven men with one ambition; the brilliant Russian rocket designer Sergei Korolev and the German rocket genius Werner von Braun.
Falsely accused under the brutal Stalin regime of disruptive activities and forced to give a false confession, Korolev was sentenced to 10 years in the worst of the Gulag camps (network of labour camps) situated on the fringes of the Arctic Circle in Siberia where thousands died each month. Korolev survived and eventually good sense prevailed as the Russians realised this brilliant man had the ability to translate fundamental principles of physics into rocket design. But so fearful were the Russians that the West could assassinate Korolev he was known only as the "Great Desiner" and constantly shadowed by the KGB.
Werner von Braun was the designer of the fearsome V-2 rocket that had targeted London during the Second World War. When the conflict ended the USA for political and military requirments cynically secured his talents along with his fellow German scientists. But it wasn't until John F Kennedy was elected president that his dream of a Moon landing came closer.
After many risky and often fatal experiments, two men finally left the cradle of Earth and left their first footpints on another world ... the airless Moon
Set against the dark days of the Second World War and the Cold War years Space Race is a truly splendid read ... a gripping read. I found it hard to put down. I am sure you will too.

The Two Instruments of Fate (9/9 people found this helpful)

Reading this story, one finds it hard to shake off the feeling that there was some kind of fate in the stories of both Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev. Both were energetic, brilliant space visionaries, with the clout and charisma to see their dreams through, both should have died young, in the conflagrations of Stalin purge and war respectively, yet they didn't ... and was it a coincidence that both ended up on each side of the Cold War superpower divide, so both had both the political and monetary backing necessary to achieve their hugely expensive dreams? It was as if Something had decreed that it was necessary for humankind to get into space, and therefore Korolev and von Braun were selected by it to lead the way.

Cadbury's book is a captivating and clear-eyed account of this extraordinary tale. It is so good to see, at long last, a book that is not exclusively concerned with the American side of things, we are all getting a bit bored with that. Wonderful as it was, the American venture was not the only one, and it was, in any case, nowhere near as interesting as the Russian story. Due to the hardships the Russians endured, their tale has a depth and poignancy lacking in that of their rivals, not least because of the fact that Sergei Korolev was so much more attractive a personality than von Braun. Cadbury describes Korolev's suffering at the hands of Stalin's minions with great sensitivity, and her account of his early death is quite heartbreaking.

However, there are some caveats. For example, Cadbury makes several careless mistakes in quoting her sources - for example, when Korolev, knowing he was about to die, chose to relate his experiences in the Gulag to his two favourite cosmonauts, Yuri Gagarin and Alexei Leonov, Cadbury states that he started to talk at four a. m, while Leonov, who was there, said he started talking at midnight and went on till four. This may seem a minor nit-pick, but it does seem to show that Cadbury did not pay proper attention to her primary sources.

Also, extraordinarily, Cadbury makes no connection between the agonizing heart condition (among other health problems) that Korolev suffered as a result of his gruesome ordeal in the worst of the Gulag camps - Kolyma. The implication given in the book is that they came out of nowhere. Korolev's illness and early death was a direct result of his cruel imprisonment, a fact that Cadbury does nothing to clarify. One would think that she is trying to excuse the evil, anti-human political philosophy that allowed such monstrous crimes to not only flourish but go unpunished. She does not make clear that Korolev's successes were in spite of the Communist society in which he lived, not because of it.

She also fails to relate another fascinating tale - the way in which Wernher von Braun was forced out of NASA once the moon race was won and he was no longer of any use to them. Whatever you may think of von Braun, this was out of order. And, while she goes into poignant detail about Korolev's last days, von Braun's own terrible death, from cancer, is only vaguely touched upon.

Yet the Americans richly deserved to win the space race - they did not cruelly abuse their scientists, or allow petty jealousies to sabotage their efforts, as the Soviets did. But it is good to hear of the other side of the story at last; and, despite some minor quibbles, it is difficult to imagine a more well-written and captivating account than this.

The Space Race: The Battle to Rule the Heavens

Deborah Cadbury

Reader Reviews:

Get the physics right! (0/0 people found this helpful)

Mills and Boon space history (0/0 people found this helpful)

race to space (1/1 people found this helpful)

Space Race (0/0 people found this helpful)

The Two Instruments of Fate (9/9 people found this helpful)

Similar Products

Categories