Reaching for the Moon
Short History of the Space Race
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Narrated by:
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Keith Sellon-Wright
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By:
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Roger D. Launius
About this listen
Fifty years after the Moon landing, a new history of the space race explores the lives of both Soviet and American engineers.
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.
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The human race is at a crossroads. In the coming years, we will make decisions regarding our human spaceflight program that will lead to one of two familiar futures: the open universe of Star Trek, where we allow ourselves the opportunity to spread our wings and attempt to flourish as an interplanetary species - or the closed, dystopian, and ultimately self-destructive world of Soylent Green. If we ever hope to live in the future that is the former scenario, our first stepping stone must be a manned mission to Mars.
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Not what i thought it was going to be..
- By DUDE on 05-07-13
By: Robert Zubrin
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Burning the Sky
- Operation Argus and the Untold Story of the Cold War Nuclear Tests in Outer Space
- By: Mark Wolverton
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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After the Soviet Union proved to the United States that it possessed an operational intercontinental ballistic missile with the launch of Sputnik in October 1957, the world watched anxiously as the two superpowers engaged in a game of nuclear one-upmanship. Amid this rising tension, eccentric physicist Nicholas Christofilos brought forth an outlandish, albeit ingenious, idea to defend the US from a Soviet attack: detonating nuclear warheads in space to create an artificial radiation belt that would fry incoming ICBMs. Known as Operation Argus, this plan is the most secret and riskiest experiment in history, and classified details of these nuclear tests have been long obscured.
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Extraordinary interesting history
- By Magnus Almgren on 10-23-20
By: Mark Wolverton
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My Journey at the Nuclear Brink
- By: William Perry
- Narrated by: Kevin F Spalding
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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My Journey at the Nuclear Brink is a continuation of William J. Perry's efforts to keep the world safe from a nuclear catastrophe. It tells the story of his coming of age in the nuclear era, his role in trying to shape and contain it, and how his thinking has changed about the threat these weapons pose. In a remarkable career, Perry has dealt firsthand with the changing nuclear threat.
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His journey has just begun
- By Amazon Customer on 04-18-17
By: William Perry
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Stealth
- The Secret Contest to Invent Invisible Aircraft
- By: Peter Westwick
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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On a moonless night in January 1991, a dozen US aircraft appeared in the skies over Baghdad. To the Iraqi air defenses, the planes seemed to come from nowhere. Each aircraft was more than 60 feet in length and with a wingspan of 40 feet, yet its radar footprint was the size of a ball bearing. Here was the first extensive combat application of Stealth technology. And it was devastating.
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Good Overview of the original development
- By Amazon Customer on 08-01-22
By: Peter Westwick
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Our Robots, Ourselves
- Robotics and the Myth of Autonomy
- By: David A. Mindell
- Narrated by: David Chandler
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In Our Robots, Ourselves, David Mindell offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the cutting edge of robotics today, debunking commonly held myths and exploring the rapidly changing relationships between humans and machines. Drawing on firsthand experience, extensive interviews, and the latest research from MIT and elsewhere, Mindell takes us to extreme environments-high atmosphere, deep ocean, and outer space - to reveal where the most advanced robotics already exist.
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MUST READ
- By ryan salcido on 10-01-16
By: David A. Mindell
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Apollo 11
- The Inside Story
- By: David Whitehouse
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In the most authoritative book ever written about Apollo, David Whitehouse reveals the true drama behind the mission, telling the story in the words of those who took part - based around exclusive interviews with the key players. This enthralling book takes us from the early rocket pioneers to the shock America received from the Soviets' launch of the first satellite, Sputnik; from the race to put the first person into space, through President Kennedy's enthusiasm and later doubts, to the astronauts' intense competition to leave the first footprint.
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Space Race Revivalism
- By Doug on 06-14-19
By: David Whitehouse
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The Imagineers of War
- The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World
- By: Sharon Weinberger
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon agency that has quietly shaped war and technology for nearly 60 years. Founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, the agency's original mission was to create "the unimagined weapons of the future". Over the decades, DARPA has been responsible for countless inventions and technologies that extend well beyond military technology.
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Blandly written story about DARPA politics
- By Syed on 04-18-17
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A Fiery Peace in a Cold War
- Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon
- By: Neil Sheehan
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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From Neil Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic A Bright Shining Lie, comes this long-awaited, magnificent epic. Here is the never-before-told story of the nuclear arms race that changed history - and of the visionary American Air Force officer Bernard Schriever, who led the high-stakes effort. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War is a masterly work about Schriever’s quests to prevent the Soviet Union from acquiring nuclear superiority, to penetrate and exploit space for America, and to build the first weapons meant to deter an atomic holocaust.
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Schriever rhymes with beaver.
- By John Gardner on 11-13-09
By: Neil Sheehan
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Secret Journey to Planet Serpo
- A True Story of Interplanetary Travel
- By: Len Kasten
- Narrated by: Robin Douglas
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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On July 16, 1965, a massive alien spacecraft from the Zeta Reticuli star system landed at the Nevada test site north of Las Vegas. Following a plan set in motion by President Kennedy in 1962, the alien visitors known as the Ebens welcomed 12 astronaut-trained military personnel aboard their craft for the 10-month journey to their home planet, Serpo, 39 light-years away. Working with the DIA originators of the Serpo project and the diary kept by the expedition’s commanding officer, Len Kasten chronicles the complete journey of these cosmic pioneers.
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QUOTE, UNQUOTE 🤮
- By MyName on 03-09-20
By: Len Kasten
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Nuking the Moon
- And Other Intelligence Schemes and Military Plots Left on the Drawing Board
- By: Vince Houghton
- Narrated by: Vince Houghton
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1958, the US Air Force nuked the moon as a show of military force. In 1967, the CIA sent live cats to spy on the Soviet government. In 1942, the British built a torpedo-proof aircraft carrier out of an iceberg. Of course, none of these things ever actually happened. But in Nuking the Moon, intelligence historian Vince Houghton proves that abandoned plans can be just as illuminating - and every bit as entertaining - as the ones that made it.
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Manchild writes book filled with his opinion
- By Just One More Opinion On The Internet on 08-31-19
By: Vince Houghton
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Beyond
- Our Future in Space
- By: Chris Impey
- Narrated by: Julie McKay
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Beyond dares to imagine a fantastic future for humans in space - and then reminds us that we're already there. Human exploration has been an unceasing engine of technological progress, from the first homo sapiens to leave our African cradle to a future in which mankind promises to settle another world. Beyond tells the epic story of humanity leaving home - and how humans will soon thrive in the vast universe beyond the Earth.
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OTHER WORLDS
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 01-10-16
By: Chris Impey
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Rocket Billionaires
- Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the New Space Race
- By: Tim Fernholz
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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For the larger-than-life personalities now staking their fortunes on the development of rocket ships, the new race to explore space could be a dead end, a lucrative opportunity - or the key to humanity's salvation. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos take center stage in this fast-paced narrative as they attempt to disrupt the space economy, feed their own egos, and maybe even save the world.
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Interesting book; hard to listen to
- By K. Thai on 04-12-18
By: Tim Fernholz
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Landing Eagle: Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing
- By: Michael Engle
- Narrated by: Sean Tivenan
- Length: 1 hr and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In Landing Eagle: Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing, author Mike Engle gives a minute by minute account of the events that occurred throughout Eagle’s descent and landing on the Moon. Engle, a retired NASA engineer and Mission Control flight controller, uses NASA audio files of actual voice recordings made inside Eagle’s cockpit during landing to give the listener an inside-the-cockpit perspective on the first Moon landing.
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Wanted to like this
- By R. Winchester on 07-16-19
By: Michael Engle
What listeners say about Reaching for the Moon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- S. Cohan
- 10-09-19
Favorite Thing I Listened To All Year
Great history describing the successes and setbacks of putting a man on the moon. A must for anyone interested in science and innovation.
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- Ed Shropshire
- 04-13-23
All over the map
I found part of this book very interesting, but part of the book was a lot of the author's interpretation based on selecting facts that fit his point of view. I did get a good laugh at his digs at conservatives and moderates in the book. I laughed out loud on his review of the Apollo 13 movie.
Overall I liked the technical and historical facts parts of the book and just ignored his political comments. I am glad I did not pay for the book. I have listened and read better books on Apollo and the US space program.
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