Voices of the Soviet Space Program

Voices of the Soviet Space Program
Author: S. Gerovitch
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2014-12-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 113748179X

In this remarkable oral history, Slava Gerovitch presents interviews with the men and women who witnessed Soviet space efforts firsthand. Rather than comprising a "master narrative," these fascinating and varied accounts bring to light the often divergent perspectives, experiences, and institutional cultures that defined the Soviet space program.

Soviet Space Mythologies

Soviet Space Mythologies
Author: Slava Gerovitch
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2015-06-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0822980967

From the start, the Soviet human space program had an identity crisis. Were cosmonauts heroic pilots steering their craft through the dangers of space, or were they mere passengers riding safely aboard fully automated machines? Tensions between Soviet cosmonauts and space engineers were reflected not only in the internal development of the space program but also in Soviet propaganda that wavered between praising daring heroes and flawless technologies. Soviet Space Mythologies explores the history of the Soviet human space program within a political and cultural context, giving particular attention to the two professional groups—space engineers and cosmonauts—who secretly built and publicly represented the program. Drawing on recent scholarship on memory and identity formation, this book shows how both the myths of Soviet official history and privately circulating counter-myths have served as instruments of collective memory and professional identity. These practices shaped the evolving cultural image of the space age in popular Soviet imagination. Soviet Space Mythologies provides a valuable resource for scholars and students of space history, history of technology, and Soviet (and post-Soviet) history.

From Newspeak to Cyberspeak

From Newspeak to Cyberspeak
Author: Slava Gerovitch
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2004-09-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780262572255

In this book, Slava Gerovitch argues that Soviet cybernetics was not just an intellectual trend but a social movement for radical reform in science and society as a whole. Followers of cybernetics viewed computer simulation as a universal method of problem solving and the language of cybernetics as a language of objectivity and truth. With this new objectivity, they challenged the existing order of things in economics and politics as well as in science. The history of Soviet cybernetics followed a curious arc. In the 1950s it was labeled a reactionary pseudoscience and a weapon of imperialist ideology. With the arrival of Khrushchev's political "thaw," however, it was seen as an innocent victim of political oppression, and it evolved into a movement for radical reform of the Stalinist system of science. In the early 1960s it was hailed as "science in the service of communism," but by the end of the decade it had turned into a shallow fashionable trend. Using extensive new archival materials, Gerovitch argues that these fluctuating attitudes reflected profound changes in scientific language and research methodology across disciplines, in power relations within the scientific community, and in the political role of scientists and engineers in Soviet society. His detailed analysis of scientific discourse shows how the Newspeak of the late Stalinist period and the Cyberspeak that challenged it eventually blended into "CyberNewspeak."

Epic Rivalry

Epic Rivalry
Author: Von Hardesty
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2007-09-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1426202091

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon in 1969, they personified an almost unimaginable feat—the incredibly complex task of sending humans safely to another celestial body. This extraordinary odyssey, which grew from the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, was galvanized by the Sputnik launch in 1957. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Sputnik, National Geographic recaptures this gripping moment in the human experience with a lively and compelling new account. Written by Smithsonian curator Von Hardesty and researcher Gene Eisman, Epic Rivalry tells the story from both the American and the Russian points of view, and shows how each space-faring nation played a vital role in stimulating the work of the other. Scores of rare, unpublished, and powerful photographs recall the urgency and technical creativity of both nations' efforts. The authors recreate in vivid detail the "parallel universes" of the two space exploration programs, with visionaries Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev and political leaders John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev at the epicenters. The conflict between countries, and the tense drama of their independent progress, unfolds in vivid prose. Approaching its subject from a uniquely balanced perspective, this important new narrative chronicles the epic race to the moon and back as it has never been told before—and captures the interest of casual browsers and science, space, and history enthusiasts alike.

Rockets and People Volume I (NASA History Series. NASA Sp-2005-4110)

Rockets and People Volume I (NASA History Series. NASA Sp-2005-4110)
Author: Boris Chertok
Publisher: Military Bookshop
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781780398310

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. 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 60-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 (volumes two through four are forthcoming), 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. This book was edited by Asif Siddiqi, a historian of Russian space exploration, and General 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.

Laika

Laika
Author: Nick Abadzis
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2007-09-04
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 9781596431010

Laika was the abandoned puppy destined to become Earth's first space traveler. This is her journey. Nick Abadzis masterfully blends fiction and fact in the intertwined stories of three compelling lives. Along with Laika, there is Korolev, once a political prisoner, now a driven engineer at the top of the Soviet space program, and Yelena, the lab technician responsible for Laika's health and life. This intense triangle is rendered with the pitch-perfect emotionality of classics like Because of Winn Dixie, Shiloh, and Old Yeller. Abadzis gives life to a pivotal moment in modern history, casting light on the hidden moments of deep humanity behind history. Laika's story will speak straight to your heart. Laika is the winner of the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens and an Eisner Award nominee for Best Reality-Based Work.

The Soviet Sixties

The Soviet Sixties
Author: Robert Hornsby
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 501
Release: 2023-09-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300275064

The story of a remarkable era of reform, controversy, optimism, and Cold War confrontation in the Soviet Union Beginning with the death of Stalin in 1953, the “sixties” era in the Soviet Union was just as vibrant and transformative as in the West. The ideological romanticism of the revolutionary years was revived, with renewed emphasis on egalitarianism, equality, and the building of a communist utopia. Mass terror was reined in, great victories were won in the space race, Stalinist cultural dogmas were challenged, and young people danced to jazz and rock and roll. Robert Hornsby examines this remarkable and surprising period, showing that, even as living standards rose, aspects of earlier days endured. Censorship and policing remained tight, and massacres during protests in Tbilisi and Novocherkassk, alongside invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, showed the limits of reform. The rivalry with the United States reached perhaps its most volatile point, friendship with China turned to bitter enmity, and global decolonization opened up new horizons for the USSR in the developing world. These tumultuous years transformed the lives of Soviet citizens and helped reshape the wider world.

Pioneering Space

Pioneering Space
Author: James E. Oberg
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1986
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780070480391

Takes amateur spacefarers on a flight into the future.

No Heavenly Bodies

No Heavenly Bodies
Author: Christine E. Evans
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2023-11-28
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262376822

The compelling and little-known history of satellite communications that reveals the Soviet and Eastern European roles in the development of its infrastructure. Taking its title from Hannah Arendt’s description of artificial earth satellites, No Heavenly Bodies explores the history of the first two decades of satellite communications. Christine E. Evans and Lars Lundgren trace how satellite communications infrastructure was imagined, negotiated, and built across the Earth’s surface, including across the Iron Curtain. While the United States’ and European countries’ roles in satellite communications are well documented, Evans and Lundgren delve deep into the role the Soviet Union and other socialist countries played in shaping the infrastructure of satellite communications technology in its first two decades. Departing from the Cold War binary and the competitive framework that has animated much of space historiography and telecommunications history, No Heavenly Bodies focuses instead on interaction, cooperation, and mutual influence across the Cold War divide. Evans and Lundgren describe the expansion of satellite communications networks as a process of negotiation and interaction, rather than a simple contest of technological and geopolitical prowess. In so doing, they make visible the significant overlaps, shared imaginaries, points of contact and exchange, and negotiated settlements that determined the shape of satellite communications in its formative decades.

Gender, Sexuality, and the Cold War

Gender, Sexuality, and the Cold War
Author: Philip E. Muehlenbeck
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2021-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0826503942

As Marko Dumančić writes in his introduction to Gender, Sexuality, and the Cold War, "despite the centrality of gender and sexuality in human relations, their scholarly study has played a secondary role in the history of the Cold War. . . . It is not an exaggeration to say that few were left unaffected by Cold War gender politics; even those who were in charge of producing, disseminating, and enforcing cultural norms were called on to live by the gender and sexuality models into which they breathed life." This underscores the importance of this volume, as here scholars tackle issues ranging from depictions of masculinity during the all-consuming space race, to the vibrant activism of Indian peasant women during this period, to the policing of sexuality inside the militaries of the world. Gender, Sexuality, and the Cold War brings together a diverse group of scholars whose combined research spans fifteen countries across five continents, claiming a place as the first volume to examine how issues of gender and sexuality impacted both the domestic and foreign policies of states, far beyond the borders of the United States, during the tumult of the Cold War. Table of Contents Preface Introduction: Hidden in Plain Sight: The Histories of Gender and Sexuality during the Cold War Marko Dumančić Part I: Sexuality Faceless and Stateless: French Occupation Policy toward Women and Children in Postwar Germany (1945-1949) Katherine Rossy Patriarchy and Segregation: Policing Sexuality in US-Icelandic Military Relations Valur Ingimundarson Queering Subversives in Cold War Canada Patrizia Gentile "Nonreligious Activities": Sex, Anticommunism, and Progressive Christianity in Late Cold War Brazil Benjamin A. Cowan Manning the Enemy: US Perspectives on International Birthrates during the Cold War Kathleen A. Tobin Part II: Femininities Indian Peasant Women's Activism in a Hot Cold War Elisabeth Armstrong The Medicalization of Childhood in Mexico during the Early Cold War, 1945-1960 Nichole Sanders Africa's Kitchen Debate: Ghanaian Domestic Space in the Age of the Cold War Jeffrey S. Ahlman Mobilizing Women? State Feminisms in Communist Czechoslovakia and Socialist Egypt May Hawas and Philip E. Muehlenbeck A Vietnamese Woman Directs the War Story: Duc Hoan, 1937-2003 Karen Turner Global Feminism and Cold War Paradigms: Women's International NGOs and the United Nations, 1970-1985 Karen Garner Part III: Masculinities "Men of the World" or "Uniformed Boys"? Hegemonic Masculinity and the British Army in the Era of the Korean War Grace Huxford Yuri Gagarin and Celebrity Masculinity in Soviet Culture Erica L. Fraser