Rockets And People Volume I
by Boris Yevseyevich Chertok /
2005 / English / PDF
4.2 MB Download
Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet
space program but few Westerners have read direct first-hand
accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian
accomplishments in exploring space. The memoirs of Academician
Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that
gap. Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an
aviation factory near Moscow. Twenty-seven years later, he became
deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the
mysterious “Chief Designer” Sergey Korolev. Chertok’s
sixty-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the
Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets
and People. In these writings, spread over four volumes,
Academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also
elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a
society’s quest to explore the cosmos. In Volume 1, Chertok
describes his early years as an engineer and ends with the mission
to Germany after the end of World War II when the Soviets captured
Nazi missile technology and expertise. Volume 2 takes up the story
with the development of the world’s first intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) and ends with the launch of Sputnik and
the early Moon probes. In Volume 3, Chertok recollects the great
successes of the Soviet space program in the 1960s including the
launch of the world’s first space voyager Yuriy Gagarin as well as
many events connected with the Cold War. Finally, in Volume 4,
Chertok meditates at length on the massive Soviet lunar project
designed to beat the Americans to the Moon in the 1960s, ending
with his remembrances of the Energiya-Buran project.
Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet
space program but few Westerners have read direct first-hand
accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian
accomplishments in exploring space. The memoirs of Academician
Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that
gap. Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an
aviation factory near Moscow. Twenty-seven years later, he became
deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the
mysterious “Chief Designer” Sergey Korolev. Chertok’s
sixty-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the
Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets
and People. In these writings, spread over four volumes,
Academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also
elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a
society’s quest to explore the cosmos. In Volume 1, Chertok
describes his early years as an engineer and ends with the mission
to Germany after the end of World War II when the Soviets captured
Nazi missile technology and expertise. Volume 2 takes up the story
with the development of the world’s first intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) and ends with the launch of Sputnik and
the early Moon probes. In Volume 3, Chertok recollects the great
successes of the Soviet space program in the 1960s including the
launch of the world’s first space voyager Yuriy Gagarin as well as
many events connected with the Cold War. Finally, in Volume 4,
Chertok meditates at length on the massive Soviet lunar project
designed to beat the Americans to the Moon in the 1960s, ending
with his remembrances of the Energiya-Buran project.