Rockets and People; Volume II: Creating a Rocket Industry, NASA SP-2006-4110

Chertok, Boris, and Siddiqi, Asif (Series Editor)

ISBN 10: 0160766729 / ISBN 13: 9780160766725

Published by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA History Division, Office of External Relations, Washington DC, 2006

About this Item

xxviii, 669, [1] pages. Series Introduction by Asif Siddiqi. Introduction to Volume II. A Few Notes about Transliterations and Translations. List of Abbreviations, Footnotes. Illustrations. Index. Reference collection stamp on fep. No other markings noted. Some sticker residue on DJ. Boris Evseyevich Chertok (1 March 1912 - 14 December 2011) was a prominent Soviet and Russian rocket designer, responsible for control systems of a number of ballistic missiles and spacecraft. He was the author of a four-volume book Rockets and People, the definitive source of information about the history of the Soviet space program. From 1974, he was the deputy chief designer of the S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, the space aircraft designer bureau which he started working for in 1946. He retired in 1992. Between 1994 and 1999 Boris Chertok, with support from his wife Yekaterina Golubkina, created the four-volume book series about the history of the Soviet space industry. The series was originally published in Russian, in 1999. Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoirs of Academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap. Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow. Twenty-seven years later, he became deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the mysterious "Chief Designer" Sergey Korolev. Chertok's sixty-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People. In these writings, spread over four volumes, Academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a society s quest to explore the cosmos. In this Volume 2, Chertok takes up the story with the development of the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile and ends with the launch of Sputnik and the early Moon, Mars, and Venus probes. His engaging accounts of these dramatic and historic years reveal repeated failures, technical problems, and governmental struggles that marked the opening of the space race in the Soviet Union. An extensive technical discussion provides new details about the tragic Nedelin Disaster in October 1960 which killed over 100 workers attempting to launch an ICBM. Chertok calls it most horrific disaster in the history of missile and space technology. Contents: Three New Technologies, Three State Committees * The Return * From Usedom Island to Gorodomlya Island * Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor * The Alliance with Science * Department U * Face to Face with the R-1 Missile * The R-1 Missile Goes Into Service * Managers and Colleagues * NII-885 and Other Institutes * Air Defense Missiles * Flying by the Stars * Missiles of the Cold War's First Decade * On the First Missile Submarine * Prologue to Nuclear Strategy * The Seven Problems of the R-7 Missile * The Birth of a Firing Range * 15 May 1957 * No Time for a Breather * Mysterious Illness * Breakthrough into Space * Flight-Development Tests Continue * The R-7 Goes into Service * From Tyuratam to the Hawaiian Islands and Beyond * Lunar Assault * Back at RNII * The Great Merger * First School of Control in Space * Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly to Koshka, The Beginning of the 1960s, Onward to Mars.and Venus, and Catastrophes. This book was edited by Asif Siddiqi, a historian of Russian space exploration, Overall, this book contributes much new material to the literature about the Soviet space program. Presumed first edition/first printing thus.

Seller Inventory # 73639

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Rockets and People; Volume II: Creating a Rocket Industry, NASA SP-2006-4110
• Publisher: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA History Division, Office of External Relations, Washington DC
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0160766729
• ISBN 13: 9780160766725
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very good
• Dust Jacket Condition: very good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Rockets

About this title

Synopsis

Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoir of Academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap. In Volume 1 of Rockets and People, Chertok described his early life as an aeronautical engineer and his adventures as a member of the Soviet team that searched postwar, occupied Germany for the remnants of the Nazi rocket program.

In Volume 2, Chertok takes up the story after his return to the Soviet Union in 1946, when Stalin ordered the foundation of the postwar missile program at an old artillery factory northeast of Moscow. Chertok gives an unprecedented view into the early days of the Soviet missile program. With a keen talent for combining technical and human interests, Chertok writes of the origins and creation of the Baykonur Cosmodrome in a remote desert region of Kazakhstan.

He devotes a substantial portion of Volume 2 to describing the launch of the first Sputnik satellite and the early lunar and interplanetary probes designed under legendary Chief Designer Sergey Korolev in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He ends with a detailed description of the famous R-16 catastrophe known as the “Nedelin disaster,” which killed scores of engineers during preparations for a missile launch in 1960.

About the Author

 

Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow. Thirty years later, he was deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the mysterious “Chief Designer” Sergey Korolev. Chertok’s sixty-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People.   This book was edited by Dr. Asif Siddiqi, a historian of Russian space exploration, and Gen. Tom Stafford contributed a foreword touching upon his significant work with the Russians on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Overall, this book is an engaging read while also contributing much new material to the literature about the Soviet space program.