Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoirs of Academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap.


Contents

Series Introduction by Asif A. Siddiqi ix
Foreword by Lt. Gen.Thomas P. Stafford, USAF (Ret.) xxi
Preface to the English Language Edition xxiii
A Few Notes about Transliteration and Translation xxv
List of Abbreviations xxvii
1 Introduction: A Debt to My Generation 1
2 On the Times and My Contemporaries 5
3 Between Two Aerodromes 29
4 School in the Twenties 41
5 Factory No. 22 57
6 In the Bolkhovitinov Design Bureau and KOSTR 99
7 Arctic Triumphs and Tragedies 117
8 “Everything Real Is Rational...” 139
9 Return to Bolkhovitinov 147
10 On the Eve of War 157
11 At the Beginning of the War 173
12 In the Urals 187
13 15 May 1942 193
14 Back in Moscow 201
15 Moscow—Poznan—Berlin 211
16 May Days in Berlin 223
17 What Is Peenemünde? 239
18 To Thuringia 271
19 Nordhausen—City of Missiles and Death 277
20 Birth of the Institute RABE 287
21 Operation “Ost” 299
22 Special Incidents 309
23 In Search of a Real Boss 319
24 Korolev, Glushko, and Our First Encounters in Germany 325
25 Engine Specialists 333
26 The Institute Nordhausen 345
Index 371