Challenge To Apollo: The Soviet Union and The Space Race, 1945-1974

This book is, in essence, sixteen years in the making. First attempted to compile a history of the Soviet space program in 1982 author put together a rough chronology of the main events. A decade later, while living on a couch in a college friend's apartment, he began writing what would be a short history of the Soviet lunar landing program. The first draft was sixty-nine pages long. Late the following year, he decided to expand the topic to handle all early Soviet piloted exploration programs. That work eventually grew into what you are holding in your hand now.