TY - BOOK AU - Launius,Roger D. TI - Reaching for the moon: a short history of the space race SN - 9780300230468 AV - TL799.M6 L386 2019 PY - 2019/// CY - New Haven PB - Yale University Press KW - Space flight to the moon KW - History KW - Space race KW - Astronautics and state KW - United States KW - Soviet Union KW - Outer space KW - Exploration KW - fast KW - Print books KW - local N1 - Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-233) and index; Prologue: U.S./USSR Early Postwar Rocketry -- ONE: Sputnik Winter -- TWO: The First Race to the Moon -- THREE: Star Voyagers -- FOUR: The Decisions to Go to the Moon -- FIVE: The Game of One-Upmanship -- SIX: Creating the Moon-Landing Capability -- SEVEN: Realization -- EIGHT: Revelations N2 - At the dawn of the space age, technological breakthroughs in Earth orbit flight were both breathtaking feats of ingenuity and disturbances to a delicate global balance of power. In this short book, aerospace historian Roger D. Launius concisely and engagingly explores the driving force of this era: the race to the Moon. Beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 in October 1957 and closing with the end of the Apollo program in 1972, Launius examines how early space exploration blurred the lines between military and civilian activities, and how key actions led to space firsts as well as crushing failures. Launius places American and Soviet programs on equal footing-following American aerospace engineers Wernher von Braun and Robert Gilruth, their Soviet counterparts Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov-to highlight key actions that led to various successes, failures, and ultimately the American Moon landing ER -