Soviets in Space: Russia’s Cosmonauts and the Space Frontier(Kosmos)

In this deeply researched chronology, Colin Burgess describes the Soviet Union’s extraordinary success in the pioneering years of space exploration. Within a decade the Soviets not only launched the world’s first satellite, but were the first to send an animal and a human being into Earth orbit. More than that, their ground-breaking missions sent a woman into space, launched a three-man spacecraft and included the first person to walk in space. Six decades on from the historic spaceflight of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, Burgess guides us through the amazing achievements of Russia’s spaceflight programme through to the present day, introducing the men and women who have flown the missions as we seek to delve ever deeper into the wonders and complexities of the cosmos.

About the Author :
Colin Burgess is the author or editor of many books on the military and spaceflight, including Selecting the Mercury Seven: The Search for America's First Astronauts. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

Review :
According to the space historian Colin Burgess’s richly detailed Soviets in Space: Russia’s Cosmonauts and the Space Frontier, the U.S.S.R. would almost certainly have landed humans on the moon before the U.S. had it not been for the untimely death in 1966 of its brilliant program architect, Sergei Korolev. His replacement, Vasily Mishin, ignored engineers’ warnings, precipitating disastrous crew losses, and failed to negotiate sufficient funding from the Kremlin. Still, the Soviets built the first space station (Salyut), and until recently Russia was a productive partner in the International Space Station. For a while, at least, space represented political rapprochement. A delightful short read that captures every moment between the "Rocket Enterprise" of 1680 Moscow, up to 2021 and the 60th anniversary of Gargarin's pioneering orbit. The book is packed with facts about lesser-known missions . . . And while Burgess lists every cosmonaut, spacecraft, space station, engineer and mission plan, the real treat is his ability to conure the world of space exploration in the Soviet Union at that time. Nicely paced with an easy style, the book leaves the reader with a better appreciation of the depth of work achieved by the Soviet space sector . . . This is a great resource. This is an accessible, comprehensive history of the Russian space program from the end of WWII to the present day . . . It’s remarkable how much information Burgess fits into a fairly short volume; in around 200 pages, he covers just about every known mission and crew member, along with the politics and larger context surrounding the space race, without the reader feeling like anything important is missing. It’s a quick read and a useful overview of our best up-to-date understanding of the reality of the Russian space program. Soviets in Space reveals a journey of spectacular success, triumph, and intrigue, but also a path hindered by frustration, failure, and tragedy. During the latter half of the 20th century, the Soviets dared to take age-old dreams and turn them into reality but unlike the Americans, their efforts were mostly conducted behind a veil of secrecy and propaganda. In this authoritative account, the key people, events, and missions are revealed from a time that created a new era in history, that of human spaceflight. Colin Burgess’s remarkable and many contributions to space history have truly made him one of the doyens of the field, and with Soviets in Space he has added yet another superb work to the genre. This is a fascinating, exciting, sometimes alarming and always comprehensively clear-headed study of the Soviet space program from its beginnings to the present day. Much of the story will be less familiar to readers than the US program, and Burgess brings it all to life with dazzling panache. Over the years he has interviewed countless eyewitnesses to many of these events, and the depth and detail of his research really shows without ever slowing the narrative. There are some wonderfully rendered moments, among them the appalling and wholly unnecessary tragedy of Vladimir Komarov in Soyuz 1, or the sudden fire which broke out on the Mir space station in 1997. Key personalities such as Yuri Gagarin or Sergei Korolev are delineated with sensitivity and colour so that they live and breathe for us, and Burgess’s account of the USSR’s failed manned lunar ambitions, underscored by Korolev’s successor, the weak and dilatory Vasily Mishin, is brilliantly handled. This an excellent book by any standards, one to grace the shelves of anybody with an interest in space, the Soviet Union and above all in mankind’s thirst for epic adventure.