Spaceflight USSR/Russia: Books - Astronauts

The Rocket Men : Vostok and Voskhod, the First Soviet Manned Spaceflights

In four short years from 1961, the first manned orbiting space vehicle ­ Vostok ­ went into orbit, the first spacecraft piloted by a woman was launched, and the first man stepped outside his orbiting spaceship. All these milestone events were achieved by the USSR.
At the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s, the USSR dominated the 'space race' that would ultimately become a race to land a man on the Moon.

How did the Soviet Union get such a head-start on the USA? In The Rocket Men, Rex Hall and David Shayler chronicle the rise of the Soviet space program, from its early beginnings to the development of the huge launch complex that is still in use today.
This detailed yet highly readable book draws on recently released archive information and features photographs, from people who lived and worked in Star City, never before seen in the West.

Here is the definitive book about a time when Russia was supreme in space!

Contents:
- First dreams, theories and pioneers
- First launcher, pad and satellites
- First spacecraft and first cosmonauts
- First man and first day
- First group flights and first woman
- First crew and first EVA
- The legacy
- Conclusion
- Appendix

The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team - Their lives, legacy, and historical impact

During the first months of 1960, with the United States and the USSR engaged in plans to launch the first manned spacecraft, twenty young Soviet Air Force officers reported for duty at a top secret training facility just outside Moscow. From among these cosmonaut candidates would emerge the first person to fly into space - Yuri Gagarin.

Eventually twelve of these cosmonauts realized their dream of flying missions into space, but the other eight fell by the wayside. A quarter of a century would pass before the world learned the identities of these eight men, whose names were kept a closely guarded secret and were bypassed in spaceflight history.

Now, for the first time, the full facts and biographical details are revealed for all twenty Soviet pilots in that first cosmonaut group - men given the unparalleled chance to create history, but who lived (and sometimes died) in a State-enforced Cold War anonymity.

Contents: Foreword by Alexei Leonov - Authors' preface - About the authors - Acknowledgements - List of figures - List of abbreviations and acronyms - Sparking the Space Age - A few good Soviet men - Russia 's future spacemen - Training days - Selecting the first cosmonaut - "Poyekhali!": A man in space - Vostok flights continue - The "missing" cosmonauts: Rumour and reality - First woman of space - A tragedy, and Gagarin 's final flight - Pushing the limits - Orbits of co-operation and the end of an era.

Appendices: A Biographies in brief - B Final cosmonaut candidates - C The first cosmonaut team (TsPK-1) - D Guide to flight and programme assignments - E Parachute jumps completed by Valentin Filatyev, 1960 - 1963 - F Space flights by Group 1 cosmonauts - G Cumulative time in space - H Highest honour: Hero of the Soviet Union - Index.

Interkosmos : The Eastern Bloc's Early Space Program

This book focuses on the Interkosmos program, which was formed in 1967, marking a fundamentally new era of cooperation by socialist countries, led by the Soviet Union, in the study and exploration of space.
The chapters shed light on the space program that was at that time a prime outlet for the Soviet Union's aims at becoming a world power. Interkosmos was a highly publicized Russian space program that rapidly became a significant propaganda tool for the Soviet Union in the waning years of communism.

Billed as an international "research-cosmonaut" imperative, it was also a high-profile means of displaying solidarity with the nine participating Eastern bloc countries. Those countries contributed pilots who were trained in Moscow for week-long "guest" missions on orbiting Salyut stations. They did a little subsidiary science and were permitted only the most basic mechanical maneuvers.

In this enthralling book, and following extensive international research, the authors fully explore the background, accomplishments and political legacy of the Interkosmos program.
Through personal and often highly revealing interviews with many of the participants they relate the very human story behind this extraordinary but controversial space venture.

Russian Space Suits

A unique contribution to space science. The authors, part of the original Zveda team that manufactured spacesuits for the first Russian space flights, still play an integral role in spacesuit research and development. Thus there is no-one better to describe the technical innovations of the past 40 years, which enabled Gagarin's first flight in 1961, the first space walk in 1965 and the Mir missions of the 1980s and 1990s, and which have culminated in today¹s International Space Station.

The authors also describe how the political climate within the Soviet Union and internationally has affected the development of the space programme and their work.
Many documents are published for the first time that, together with photographs, detailed descriptions of the events of the time and the authors' personal memories, provide a fascinating review of a previously unknown aspect of space science.

Contents:
- Introduction and background
- How full pressure spacesuits came about. Time period preceding the space mission era
- The Vostok era
- Spacesuit and equipment for the world's first EVA
- EVA suit for the Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 missions
- Spacesuits for the Soviet Moon programme
- SOKOL-K and SOKOL-KV-2 rescue suits for Soyuz
- Orbit-based spacesuits of the ORLAN type
- Equipment for the Cosmonaut Transference and Manoeuvring Unit (UPMK)
- Buran reusable space system
- Evolution of the European EVA spacesuit
- Human physiological aspects in designing the EVA spacesuit
- Potential projects on planetary suits for the Moon and Mars
- Who's who in Soviet/Russian spacesuit technology
- Russian spacesuit artefacts.