A book I read a few years ago after it had been dramatised as a BBC series. A really detailed and well researched account of the space race from both the US and USSR sides. The story also focuses on the two figure heads Wernher Von Braun and Sergei Korolev.
The book also tracks the break up of the German V2 rocket scientists and the race by the allies and the Russians to get hold of them and their precious knowledge. The time America had invested in the atom bomb had been time spent on rocket technology in Germany. It was reckoned that they were 25 years ahead of anyone else at the end of World War II.
The book really describes the risk that were taken and the near and actual disasters that occurred. Even today space travel is a risky business. The simple fact of escaping the gravity well and the dangers of re-entry in the atmosphere see to that.
A theme throughout is how much was Von Braun involved with the slave labour camp that was producing the V2 rocket. It is likely a little too much to be acceptable but somehow this remained quiet until the 1970s. I think at best the book tries to portray his idealism for space travel allowed him to turn a blind eye to the slave camp conditions he must have known about.
Well worth a second read, an impressive account.
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