Red Moon Rising
by Matthew Brzezinski · first published 2007
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The behind-the-scenes story of the fierce battles on earth that launched the superpowers into space. Khrushchev was frustrated at America's U-2 spy plane, which flew too high to be shot down. But Russia's chief rocket designer, had an answer: an artificial satellite that would orbit the earth and cross American skies at will. The launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957, stunned the world. Sputnik set in motion events that led not only to the moon landing but also to cell phones, federally guaranteed student loans, and the wireless Internet. Journalist Brzezinski takes us inside the Kremlin, the W
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"Red Moon Rising" by Matthew Brzezinski, it tells the story of the Sputnik programme and is just really very well written.
on “Ask HN: Books about people who did hard things” ↗…lot more complicated than that. Mostly the U.S. went to the moon to provide civilian cover for R&D investments in I.C.B.M. and satellite surveillance technology. If you are interested I suggest reading "Red Moon Rising", which covers quite accurately the early players and their politics and motivations on both sides (from the V-2 in WW2 to Yuri Gagarin and Kennedy's declaration).
on “China set to launch own space station within days” ↗A google search gives a lot of results, but I think you mean this: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Moon-Rising-Sputnik-Rivalries/dp/0... Is this true?
on “China set to launch own space station within days” ↗Two books cover it extensively, Apollo[0] and Red Moon Rising[1] - I can't remember the exact date, but at some point even Albert Einstein wrote a letter opposing Von Braun. By the mid-50s his history had been all washed over and forgotten, and it wasn't until…
on “SpaceX successfully launches and recovers second Falcon 9 in 48 hours” ↗