Roads to Space An Oral History of the Soviet Space Program

About this book

From the publisher's note: The book is a faithful translation of the original Russian work published in three volumes in Moscow in 1993. The knowledgeable reader will likely discover some dates and events are not historically accurate. We have decided to present them as they were remembered and recited decades later by the men who lived them and as they were published in the Russian version of the book. We did not feel it was our place to revise here in the West the wonderful story that our colleagues in Moscow had assembled. We do, however, wish to alert our readers to the kinds of discrepancies they are likely to discover, and we thank for help in finding some of these items Maxwell W. Hunter, a well-known U.S. space and rocket pioneer, and Nicholas L. Johnson, Principal Scientist for Kaman Sciences Corporation. Both men read advance copies of the manuscript for us. For instance, the mission of Luna-24 was in August 1976, not September 1975 as presented in the book. Soyuz-4 was launched January 14 1969, not 1968; Salyut-3 was launched in June 1974, not April; a Proton launch described as taking place on September 12, 1971, occurred on that date in 1970. The first orbital mission from Kapustin Yar was on March 16, 1962, not May 15, 1960; Bhaskara was launched on June 7, 1979 not June 17. These and other discrepancies signify that clearly, this is not a book that should be used as an historical reference without verifying accuracy. It is a book about people, not hardware. It is about their dreams, their aspirations and their achievements that unquestionably occurred, even if the dates and descriptions as remembered decades later are slightly askew. We have provided some enhancements to the original Russian volumes -- a section of historic photographs that translator Peter Berlin obtained for us from Russian archives, an index, short biographies of the principals and a chronology of events. Occasionally a project comes along that simply excites and energizes. For us, publishing Roads to Space is one of these. We have no doubt you will find Roads to Space an engaging story, and that's why the editors of Aerospace Daily are pleased to make it available for the first time to readers in the West. --Edmund Pinto.