Energiya Buran

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.

The daring, revolutionary NASA that sent Neil Armstrong to the moon has lost its meteoric vision, says journalist and space enthusiast Greg Klerkx. NASA, he contends, has devolved from a pioneer of space exploration into a factionalized bureaucracy focused primarily on its own survival. And as a result, humans haven’t ventured beyond Earth orbit for three decades. Klerkx argues that after its wildly successful Apollo program, NASA clung fiercely to the spotlight by creating a government-sheltered monopoly with a few Big Aerospace companies. Although committed in theory to supporting commercial spaceflight, in practice it smothered vital private-sector innovation. In striking descriptions of space milestones spanning the golden 1960s Space Age and the 2003 Columbia tragedy, Klerkx exposes the “real” NASA and envisions exciting public-private cooperation that could send humans back to the moon and beyond.

Until the Apollo-Soyuz flight of 1972, the Russian Space Program was shrouded in such complete secrecy that only rumors of failures (or catastrophes) reached the West. This comprehensive history of the Russian Space Program, from its Sputnik origins to the privatized Mir Space Station, addresses the technical, political, historical, human, and organizational issues and provides a balanced focus on the manned and unmanned programs. It is the first book to assess the Russian Space Program including the 10-year period since the fall of communism.

This, fifty years after Sputnik, is the definitive book on the Russian space program. The author covers all the key elements of the current Russian space program, including both manned and unmanned missions. He examines the various types of unmanned applications programs as well as the crucial military program, and even analyzes the infrastructure of production, launch centres and tracking. You’ll also find discussion of the commercialization of the program and its relationship with western companies. Russia’s current space experiment is also put in a comparative global context. Strong emphasis is placed on Russia’s future space intentions and on new programs and missions in prospect.

A complete history of human endeavors in space, this book also moves beyond the traditional topics of human spaceflight, space technology, and space science to include political, social, cultural, and economic issues, and also commercial, civilian, and military applications. In two expertly written volumes, Space Exploration and Humanity: A Historical Encyclopedia covers all aspects of space flight in all participating nations, ranging from the Cold War–era beginnings of the space race to the lunar landings and the Apollo-Soyuz mission; from the Shuttle disasters and the Hubble telescope to Galileo, the Mars Rover, and the International Space Station. The book moves beyond the traditional topics of human spaceflight, space technology, and space science to include political, social, cultural, and economic issues, and also commercial, civilian, and military applications. Produced in conjunction with the History Committee of the American Astronautical Society, this work divides its coverage into six sections, each beginning with an overview essay, followed by an alphabetically organized series of entries on topics such as astrophysics and planetary science; civilian and commercial space applications; human spaceflight and microgravity science; space and society; and space technology and engineering. Whether investigating a specific issue or event or tracing an overarching historic trend, students and general readers will find this an invaluable resource for launching their study of one of humanity's most extraordinary endeavors.

V. 1. [no special title] -- v. 2. Creating a rocket industry -- v. 3 Hot days of the Cold War -- v. 4. The moon race.