Explores the previously uncelebrated but pivotal contributions of NASA's African-American women mathematicians to America's space program, describing how Jim Crow laws segregated them from their white counterparts despite their groundbreaking successes.

Laika began her life as a stray dog on the streets of Moscow and died in 1957 aboard the Soviet satellite Sputnik II. Initially the USSR reported that Laika, the first animal to orbit the earth, had survived in space for seven days, providing valuable data that would make future manned space flight possible. People believed that Laika died a painless death as her oxygen ran out. Only in recent decades has the real story become public: Laika died after...

Despite an early lead in the space exploration, the Soviet Union faced a series of setbacks during the race to the moon. The deaths of chief designer Sergei Korolev and hero Yuri Gagarin, as well as the explosion of the N1 rocket, allowed the Americans to land on the moon first. The Soviets instead began working on the first space stations. After the Soviet Union collapsed, international cooperation-not competition-became key to space exploration....

"This narrative nonfiction work recounts the early years of air and space exploration and the daring exploits of America's first astronauts--both the men and women who were called upon to train"--

This video clip contains footage of Yuri Gagarin training (2/16/61, Swjosdny Gorodok, U.S.S.R.) and an HW-2 rocket launch (10/6/32, Baltijsk, U.S.S.R.).

This book is a collection of primary and secondary accounts of the competitive space race between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., detailing events during the 1950s and 1960s.

"A riveting history of the momentous Friendship 7 space flight that put America back into the space race. If the United States couldn't catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War-a moment when the Soviet Union built the wall in Berlin, tested nuclear bombs more destructive than any in history, and beat the US to every major milestone in space....

"A witty, deeply researched history of the surprisingly ramshackle Soviet space program, and how its success was more spin than science. In the wake of World War II, with America ascendant and the Soviet Union devastated by the conflict, the Space Race should have been over before it started. But the underdog Soviets scored a series of victories--starting with the 1957 launch of Sputnik and continuing in the years following--that seemed to achieve...

Describes the Apollo II mission to the moon, the history of moon exploration, and what the future might hold as regards moon exploration.