A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey
1957 - The Space Race Begins
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Narrated by:
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Alan Sklar
About this listen
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite into orbit around the Earth. Little more than a month later, the Soviets launched Sputnik II. News of Sputnik created panic in Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States. Within days, the U.S. military began a madcap race to space, full of crashes, skullduggery, and backstabbing - until Eisenhower's secret civilian program surpassed the Soviets by putting the first American, a hero monkey named Gordo, into orbit.
D'Antonio draws on archives, film footage, and interviews with many of the scientists, reporters, and others who were involved in the first year of the space race. He recounts the early days of the space race with all the zaniness and urgency of the time, just in time for 50th-anniversary commemorations.
©2007 Michael D'Antonio (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
By August 1968, the American space program was in danger of failing in its two most important objectives: to land a man on the moon by President Kennedy's end-of-decade deadline and to triumph over the Soviets in space. With its back against the wall, NASA made an almost unimaginable leap: It would scrap its usual methodical approach and risk everything on a sudden launch, sending the first men in history to the moon - in just four months.
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The Men Who Saved 1968
- By Gillian on 04-04-18
By: Robert Kurson
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Command and Control
- Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
- By: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved - and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind.
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A miracle that we escaped the Cold War alive....
- By A reader on 02-16-14
By: Eric Schlosser
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Into the Black
- The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her
- By: Rowland White, Richard Truly
- Narrated by: Eric Meyers
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Using interviews, NASA oral histories, and recently declassified material, Into the Black pieces together the dramatic untold story of the Columbia mission and the brave people who dedicated themselves to help the United States succeed in the age of space exploration. On April 12, 1981, NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral. It was the most advanced, state-of-the-art flying machine ever built, challenging the minds and imagination of America's top engineers and pilots.
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Great Story About a Flawed Spacecraft
- By John on 12-04-16
By: Rowland White, and others
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First Man
- The Life of Neil A. Armstrong
- By: James R. Hansen
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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When Apollo 11 touched down on the Moon’s surface in 1969, the first man on the Moon became a legend. In First Man, author James R. Hansen explores the life of Neil Armstrong. Based on over 50 hours of interviews with the intensely private Armstrong, who also gave Hansen exclusive access to private documents and family sources, this "magnificent panorama of the second half of the American twentieth century" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) is an unparalleled biography of an American icon.
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Not really 'unabridged'
- By A Reader on 06-06-18
By: James R. Hansen
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Moon Shot
- The Inside Story of Man's Greatest Adventure
- By: Dan Parry
- Narrated by: John Chancer
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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‘It didn’t matter that they were now three miles beyond their target site, that communications were dropping out and that they were running low on fuel. All that mattered to Neil as he searched for a safe spot to land was that boulders littered the surface below. “Thirty seconds,” called mission control. In truth, the flight controllers were now no more than spectators, just like everybody else. No more needed to be said. It was down to Armstrong
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Wow.
- By Shellbin on 02-04-12
By: Dan Parry
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The Dead Hand
- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill.
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Eye opening
- By Brian on 11-16-10
By: David E. Hoffman
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Admiral Hyman Rickover
- Engineer of Power (The Jewish Lives Series)
- By: Marc Wortman
- Narrated by: Paul Bellantoni
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Admiral Hyman George Rickover (1899-1986) remains an almost mythical figure in the United States Navy. A brilliant engineer with a ferocious will and combative personality, he oversaw the invention of the world’s first practical nuclear power reactor. In this exciting biography, historian Marc Wortman explores the constant conflict Rickover faced and provoked, tracing how he revolutionized the navy and Cold War strategy.
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Rickover - No Compromises
- By Brustar on 07-18-22
By: Marc Wortman
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The Flight of the Century: Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of American Aviation
- Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History
- By: Thomas Kessner
- Narrated by: Bob McGraw
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In late May 1927 an inexperienced and unassuming 25-year-old Air Mail pilot from rural Minnesota stunned the world by making the first non-stop transatlantic flight. A spectacular feat of individual daring and collective technological accomplishment, Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris ushered in America's age of commercial aviation.
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Flawed but Worthwhile
- By Ray Daniels on 11-11-22
By: Thomas Kessner
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The Making of the Atomic Bomb
- 25th Anniversary Edition
- By: Richard Rhodes
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 37 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Here for the first time, in rich human, political, and scientific detail, is the complete story of how the bomb was developed, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly - or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity, there was a span of hardly more than 25 years.
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Beware limitations of the reader
- By JFanson on 01-01-19
By: Richard Rhodes
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Tuxedo Park
- A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: John Kroft
- Length: 13 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1930s, legendary financier, philanthropist, and society figure Alfred Lee Loomis gathered the most visionary scientific minds of the 20th century at his state-of-the-art laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York. He established a top-secret defense laboratory at MIT and personally bankrolled pioneering research into new, high-powered radar detection systems that helped defeat the German Air Force and U-boats. With Ernest Lawrence, he pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt to fund research in nuclear fission, which led to the development of the atomic bomb.
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Fantastic book, weak technical execution
- By Paul on 10-13-18
By: Jennet Conant
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The Dream Machine
- The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey
- By: Richard Whittle
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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When the Marines decided to buy a helicopter-airplane hybrid "tiltrotor" called the V-22 Osprey, they saw it as their dream machine. The tiltrotor was the aviation equivalent of finding the Northwest Passage: an aircraft able to take off, land, and hover with the agility of a helicopter yet fly as fast and as far as an airplane. Many predicted it would reshape civilian aviation. The Marines saw it as key to their very survival. Opponents called it one of the worst boondoggles in Pentagon history.
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Innovation runs into government
- By Cx30 on 09-25-10
By: Richard Whittle
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The Mercury 13
- The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight
- By: Martha Ackmann
- Narrated by: Julie Eickhoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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For fans of The Astronaut Wives Club, The Mercury 13 reveals the little-known true story of the remarkable women who trained for NASA space flight. In 1961, just as NASA launched its first man into space, a group of women underwent secret testing in the hopes of becoming America’s first female astronauts. They passed the same battery of tests at the legendary Lovelace Foundation as did the Mercury 7 astronauts, but they were summarily dismissed by the boys’ club at NASA and on Capitol Hill.
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Amazing story
- By Chilli Dog on 01-26-15
By: Martha Ackmann
What listeners say about A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Luke
- 02-05-23
American biased, full of the same old lies!
The Soviets were and still are to this day the leaders in all things space! NASA never landed a man on the Moon and returned him safely to Earth, do your own research. But this book is not a total waste of money as I learned a few things I didn't know and also had my suspicions confirmed.
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Overall
- Thomas
- 12-15-07
Well written, well read
First, if I could give this book 3.5 stars I would.
The book is well written and the narrator is good.
The book is read with an air of suspense like a murder mystery documentary from the discovery channel.
It has about two chapters worth of Sputnik information, very little of which seems to be insider information gleaned from the recent opening classified files on their space programs.
This book doesn't seem to take itself too seriously, it reads more like an extended history channel documentary rather than hard fact based history.
I recommend it as a fun read.
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6 people found this helpful