Spaceflight USSR/Russia: books - history and technology

Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration

Little is known of Soviet and Russian lunar exploration although, in fact, the Soviet Union/Russia:
- Sent the first spaceships past the moon, the first to hit the moon and the first to circle the moon
- Was first to soft land on and orbit the moon
- Was first to send a spaceship around the moon and recover it on Earth
- Came very close to sending a cosmonaut around the moon first
- Built and successfully tested, in Earth orbit, a lunar lander
- Pioneered sophisticated, precise high-speed reentries into the Earth's atmosphere
- Came close to perfecting a giant moon rocket, the N-1
- Retrieved three sets of rock samples from the moon by automatic spacecraft
- Landed advanced roving laboratories that explored the moon for months on end, traveling 48km
- Designed long-term lunar bases.
These were remarkable achievements requiring a considerable level of engineering sophistication and have a place in the contemporary story of astronautics. Recent landings on Mars use, essentially, the very techniques developed by Russia to land on and explore the moon in the 1960s and 1970s.

As an acknowledged expert and author of several books on the Soviet and Russian space programme, Brian Harvey is ideally suited to cover not only the engineering and scientific side but also the human stories of the Soviet and Russian lunar programme. These include those of the cosmonaut squad that trained to land on the moon, but was stood down, and of the designers who tried to realise the dream of a Russian moon, from Tikhonravov to Mishin: a Soviet lunar programme was first proposed by designer Mikhail Tikhonravov in a children's magazine in 1951 and he persuaded a sceptical Soviet leadership of the value of a moon programme.
Following Sputnik, the first lunar flights quickly achieved the key goals of hitting, circling and photographing the moon in 1959. The Soviet Union achieved all the early 'firsts' in lunar exploration, such as soft landing and orbiting the moon, and Brian Harvey will recount the frantic efforts to rival America's Apollo and the dramatic hours of 21st July 1969, when Russia tried to soft land Luna 15 in the Sea of Crises even as Armstrong and Aldrin explored the moon in the nearby Sea of Tranquility.

Contents: Origins of the Soviet lunar programme - The first moon probes - Planning the lunar landing - The sof - landers and orbiters - The first cosmonauts to the moon - Around the moon - Samplers, rovers and orbiters - Return to the moon - List of all Soviet moon probes (and related missions) - Bibliographical note and bibliography.

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Energiya-Buran : The Soviet Space Shuttle

This absorbing book describes the long development of the Soviet space shuttle system, its infrastructure and the space agency's plans to follow up the first historic unmanned mission.
The book includes comparisons with the American shuttle system and offers accounts of the Soviet test pilots chosen for training to fly the system, and the operational, political and engineering problems that finally sealed the fate of Buran and ultimately of NASA's Shuttle fleet.

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Russian Space Probes - Scientific Discoveries and Future Missions

The Soviet Union began the exploration of space with the launch of Sputnik in 1957, well over 50 years ago, and sent the first probes to the moon, Mars, and Venus. Less well known is what these probes actually found out. What were the discoveries of Russian space science? What new discoveries may we expect in the future? Who were Russia's most important scientists?

Russian Space Probes gives for the first time the definitive history of Soviet-Russian space science, and is the first book to assess the actual achievements of the Russian space program in furthering our knowledge of the Solar System.

Among other projects covered are missions such as Elektron, which mapped the Earth's radiation belts; the astrophysical observatories Astron, Kuant, Gamma, and Granat; Proton, which trapped cosmic rays; Prognoz, which measured solar radiation; and the Interball, Aktivny, APEX and Magion missions in which satellites chased each other in the Earth's magnetic tail.

The final part of the book examines the future of Russian space science and looks at planned new missions, such as the Spektr series of space observatories, and return flights to the moon and Mars, including sampling of Phobos.

Contents:
1. Early space science
2. Deepening our understanding
3. Revealing the Moon
4. Unveiling Venus
5. The path to Mars
6. Orbiting space stations
7. Later Soviet space science: the observatories
8. Perspectives, past and future

Annexe: Summary of Soviet and Russian space science missions
Bibliography
Index

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Salyut - The First Space Station - Triumph and Tragedy

This remarkable book offers a unique insight into the people involved in the development of the Salyut space station and the crews assigned to operate it. It describes the rotation between the crews, analyses the decision to send the back-up crew on Soyuz 11 and recounts the intrigues and difficult relationships between all the personalities involved - politicians, CKBEM managers, designers, generals and cosmonauts.
Biographies of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts are published for the first time in English and the longest manned space mission of the time is described before Grujica Ivanovich gives a unique summary of the most tragic day in the Soviet / Russian manned space program. An investigation into the cause of the tragic deaths of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts precedes a description of the post-Salyut era, showing how the legacy of the first space station has survived for decades.

Contents: From Almaz to Salyut - DO -1 crews - Salyut in space - The drama of the Granites - Mutiny at the cosmodrome - Dobrovolskiy, Volkov and Patsayev - Home in orbit - Science and conflicts - The fire - Drawing away from the station - Cosmonauts dead on landing - Farewell - Thirteen seconds to eternity - The fall of the Chief Designer - Memories.

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Projekt Sputnik - Der Aufbruch ins All (Raumfahrt-Bibliothek)

"Sputnik" was the name of the first satellite that was successfully launched into Earth orbit; it was followed by nine more satellites of the same name.
On October 4 1957, the Soviet Union launched the spherical Sputnik 1 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The launch sent the Western world into a panic, because it put the Soviet Union ahead in the race for supremacy in space.
An exciting piece of contemporary and technical history. Eberhardt Rödel is a specialist in the history of Russian space travel.

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