posted 09-29-2008 09:12 AM               

A History of Human Space Exploration: Escaping the Cradle will focus upon the 1960s, exploring each mission from April 1961 to April 1971 in depth: from the pioneering Vostok flights to the establishment of the first Salyut space station and from Alan Shepard's modest sub-orbital "hop" into space to his triumphant arrival at the Moon's Fra Mauro foothills almost a decade later.

The Introduction sets the scene with early plans to explore space, balloon flights and such details as the development of pressure suits. Each of the Vostok missions is then covered in depth, together with unmanned precursor flights, subsequent plans and the development of Voskhod. Chapter 2 studies the Mercury missions together with unmanned and monkey flights, the development of the Redstone and Atlas boosters and the ill-fated Dyna-Soar, while the twin Voskhod missions, including the first three-man space crew, first spacewalk and plans for subsequent Voskhods to extend time in space are covered in the third chapter. Each of the Gemini missions are then described, as well as why and how the United States managed to achieve such a "lead" over the Soviet Union, practising techniques for lunar landings, the development of spacesuit technology for extravehicular activities, "Blue Gemini" and the Manned Orbiting Laboratory. The Soyuz 1 and Apollo 1 tragedies and aftermath, including redesign, changes to future plans and the effect of Korolev's death precede a chapter on the United States' drive for the Moon, up to Apollo 14, including the challenges facing the first lunar explorers, the consistency of lunar soil and the development of spacesuits to handle locomotion.

This first volume ends with an analysis of Soviet direction changes from lunar exploration to long-term space stations (Soyuz 3 to 10 and the development of Salyut 1) and the progress of the human space programme in the 1960s and plans for space exploration in the next decade.

• Paperback: 500 pages
  
• Publisher: Praxis; 1 edition (January 2009)
  
• ISBN-10: 0387790934
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0387790930

posted 11-17-2009 11:32 AM               

I wrote a short review on the Amazon book page if interested.