408 pgs, 1996, Praxis
ISBN 978-0471960140

The New Russian Space Programme tells how the Soviet Union became the world's first space faring nation. In the late 1950s and early 1960s the Soviet Union shook the world with its Sputnik, the first space shots to the Moon, Mars and Venus, and topped these achievements by sending the first men and women into earth orbit. However, political blunders and rivalry between designers cost the Soviet Union the Moon race. Instead, from the early 1970s the Soviet Union began to build the first manned orbital space stations, crowned by the greatest achievement of Earth orbital space flight, the Mir Spacestation.

With the end of the Cold War, the Russian space programme has reorganized. Together with the United States, Russia will build the first international space station early in the new millennium. Although budgets and programmes have been slimmed down, Russia remains a great superpower and has the world's most advanced rocket engine technology. This book uses the full revelations of the glasnost period and those archives which have opened since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1: Origins

1. Beginnings
2. The Golden Years of Soviet Rocketry
3. Moon Race


Part 2: The Programme

4. Behind the Scenes
5. The Space Fleet
6. Moon, Mars and Venus
7. Spaceplanes and Space Shuttles


Part 3: Space Stations

8. The First Space Stations
9. Living in Space
10. Mir
11. Cooperation: The International Space Station