Avoiding Armageddon describes the herculean efforts expended by the United States and the Soviet Union to best each other in rocketry during the Cold War years, interspersed with attention-grabbing accounts of the engaging personalities involved. Both countries stood on a precarious knife-edge as each sought supremacy in nuclear weapons, waiting for the other to strike before mounting a devastating counterstrike. The book clearly explains the weaponry developed by both superpowers during an escalating nuclear arms race, how the Soviets managed to pull ahead at first, and how they overcame unbelievable handicaps and heart-rending space disasters to come within a hair’s breadth of winning the Space Race against their implacable foe. Unbeknownst to the general public (and undoubtedly a great surprise to the reader), the Soviets built their own Moon rocket, the N1, as a counterpart to the American Saturn V. They launched it four times, and came very close to matching America’s accomplishments. In fact, Soviet design bureau leaders had developed ambitious plans for building lunar colonies and even manned missions to Mars to outpace the United States had the Space Race continued.
Tabla de materias
Preface
Series Introduction
Introduction
Dwight Eisenhower
Tsar Bomba
General of the Army
Earth Orbits
The Nuclear Age
Nuclear Weapon Design
Delivering Nuclear Weapons: Aircraft, MRBMs, IRBMs, ICBMs, SLBMs
Ike’s Enduring Legacies
First in Space
Yuri Gagarin
Valentina Tereshkova
Roadmap to Soviet Rocketry
Soviet Design Bureaus
Soviets Push Rocket Technology Forward
Global Rocket 1 Conference
Soviet Design Bureau Chiefs and Their History
Vladimir Chelomei
Sergei Korolev
Mikhail Yangel
Viktor Makeyev
World’s Biggest Space Catastrophe
Global Rocket 2 Conference
The Moon Race
Soviet Weaponry
SLBMs
Scuds
Solid Propellant Missiles
ICBMs
Soviet Space Vehicles
UR-700
N1 Moonship
So Close
N1-3L Moon Rocket Launch February 21, 1969
Interpersonal Conflicts between Korolev and Glushko
Korolev’s Civilian Soyuz Launch Vehicle History
Vostok
Voskhod
Molniya
Soyuz Launch Vehicle
Soyuz Spacecraft
N1-5L Moon Rocket Launch, July 4, 1969
N1-6L Moon Rocket Launch, June 27, 1971
N1-7L Moon Rocket Launch, November 23, 1972
N1-F Moon Rocket Design
Soyuz 1 Accident
Soyuz 11 Accident
Death at Sea and Project Azorian
Soviet Submarine Disasters
Soviet Space Exploration
Luna Series of Missions for Moon Exploration
Zond Spacecraft for Moon Exploration
Venera Spacecraft for Venus Exploration
Mars Spacecraft for Mars Exploration
The N1’s Last Days
Passing of the Era of Soviet Space Achievements
Communism
Fatal Flaws in the Soviet Union’s Communist Government
Russian Government Today
The Putin Era
Afterword
Acronyms & Glossary of Key Terms
Soviet Union Rocket-Related Decrees by Design Bureau, 1945-1976
Acknowledgments & Credits
Index