About this item
Highlights
- In this book, the authors describe the long development of the Soviet space shuttle system, its infrastructure and what was planned to follow the first historic unmanned mission.
- Author(s): Bart Hendrickx & Bert Vis
- 526 Pages
- Technology, Aeronautics & Astronautics
Description
About the Book
The first comprehensive book on the Soviet Energia/Buran programme in English.
Tells the fascinating story of the effort designed to keep up with the United States in the Cold War in space.
Provides information never before published in the West that has become available in the past fifteen years.
Book Synopsis
In this book, the authors describe the long development of the Soviet space shuttle system, its infrastructure and what was planned to follow the first historic unmanned mission. This is the first comprehensive book on the Soviet Energiya/Buren project published in the West, making use of exclusive Russian source material obtained by the authors over the past decade. The text includes a review of the decisions to proceed with the US space shuttle in 1972 and the Soviet decision to construct Buran in 1976, a physical description of the Energiya system, and a comparison in tabular form of Buran with the American system. Readers will gain unique insight into the rise and fall of a project primarily designed to catch up with the United States in the Cold War in space.
Review Quotes
From the reviews:
"Historians Hendrickx and Vis offer a history of the Soviet space shuttle and its attached rocket, one of the most powerful ever built. ... This comprehensive history of the program, its technology, its designers, and its cosmonauts is an important contribution to the history of space technology, and is for those interested in space policy, engineering, systems, and history. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels." (A. M. Strauss, CHOICE, Vol. 45 (7), 2008)
"Hendrickx and Vis begin with an overview of Soviet spaceplane research and development stretching back to rocketplane designs of the 1930s before moving on to describing the origins of Energiya and Buran themselves. ... Special note must also be made of the many excellent photos in this book, most of which have not been published in the West before. ... a vital addition to the literature on the USSR/Russian space programme, and Hendrickx and Vis are to be congratulated on a job very well done!" (Liftoff, Issue 248, November-December, 2008)