Stephen Walker (1) (1961–)

After recently reading “Mercury Rising” about the early days of the American manned space program (Book #69) this book provides an equally fascinating insight into what was happening on the other side of the so-called space race.

Walker does an excellent job in contrasting and comparing the approaches of USA and USSR to launching a man into space. But the focus of the book is firmly on the formerly hidden people behind the successful mission to put a man into orbit.

While it’s a story influenced by technological innovation and political meddling (on both sides of the Iron Curtain) it is above all a very human story, and one which Walker tells superbly.

This is a must read if you have any interest in the history of space exploration.… (mais)

Fantastic history! Eminently readable, a total page-turner. I learned lots about the Russian space program, and Walker does a good job integrating some well-written and well-curated stories about the American program in as well.

> ‘I got on the project because it will probably be the closest to heaven I’ll ever get,’ he joked, and the room dissolved. Glenn was an instant star.

> approximately one twentieth of the Mercury astronauts’ salaries along with their Life monies. At one point Tamara Titova and two other wives found themselves polishing other people’s floors just to make ends meet. And while Alan Shepard and some of his fellow astronauts were racing their latest-model Corvettes up and down Cocoa Beach, Gagarin and his fellow cosmonauts were taking the bus or train in Chkalovsky. None of them could afford a car.

> ‘The men were doing some very complicated exercises on these trampolines, not up to circus standards, perhaps, but their performance was neat, bold and certain.’

> unlike the Mercury capsule, the Vostok was too heavy to land safely beneath its own parachute with a human inside. The only way for them to get home was therefore to eject from the Vostok in the final minutes of descent and parachute independently to the ground.… (mais)