The First Space Race - Launching the World's First Satellites

This book details the race between the United States and Soviet Union to successfully launch the world's first satellite.

This book is the first to track the development of the U.S. and Soviet satellite programs in parallel to show how the race to space unfolded from 1955 to 1958. Some aspects of this story, such as the NOTSNIK satellite project, the U.S. Navy's response to Sputnik, are not widely known. The authors also fill in the details surrounding more familiar events, such as the appearance of America's pioneering Explorer 1 satellite and the contributions made by its rival, Project Vanguard.

In today's era of space shuttles, Mars rovers, and the International Space Station, it is difficult to imagine just how challenging the first steps into space really were. Yet at the end of the race, not only had those first satellites been launched, but the new technologies developed in the process had forever changed life on Earth.

Booz Allen Hamilton Associates Matt Bille and Erika Lishock are the authors of The First Space Race. The book's forward is written by Dr. James Van Allen. It was Van Allen who developed the instruments which, when placed on the first American satellite, Explorer 1, discovered huge radiation belts surrounding the Earth — now known as the "Van Allen" belts.

book summary posted in 2004