Posts: 169
From: Canada
Registered: Dec 2000

posted 02-24-2001 07:57 AM               

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I would strongly recommend picking up a copy of Asif A. Siddiqi's "Challenge to Apollo: the Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1975" (NASA SP-2000-4408). It is just over 1,000 pages and jammed with details. Unlike many official histories, it's also very readable and I had a hard time putting it down once I started.

It's very interesting to see NASA publishing an "official" history of a foreign space program. I think this is the first? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Posts: 1182
From: Canada
Registered: Jul 2001

posted 03-30-2009 08:19 PM               

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I would like to commend Asif Siddiqi's opus about the Soviet and Space programs.

I understand that his "Challenge to Apollo" was first published as a "Special Publication" (NASA SP-2000-4408), and that has been reedited as Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge and The Soviet Space Race with Apollo.

If I may, I see Asif's work as the counterpart to Apollo by Murray and Cox for the whole Soviet-Russian programs until the late 1990's. Like "Apollo," it revisits the global history of it, alternating between political, managerial, operational and technical considerations, making a palatable and coherent whole of it. It reads like an epic novel, while standing at the state of the art for scholarly literature.

Posts: 891
From:
Registered: Aug 2001