[FPSPACE] kudos for "Challenge to Apollo"

[Bart Hendrickx]

I know there is probably little I can add to the praise that Asif Siddiqi's
book "Challenge to Apollo" has already received on this list, but I would
like to say a few words myself nevertheless. I've only managed to read the
first 100 pages or so of this 1000+page book, but that's more than enough to
convince me that it is a major landmark in the study of the Soviet space
programme. In fact, having always admired Asif's historical articles in
magazines such as Spaceflight, JBIS and Quest, this didn't come as a
surprise to me. I suppose that for many people who thought they knew a thing
or two about Soviet space history, reading this book is a humbling
experience. That at least is definitely the case for me. Personally, it
brings back memories of reading Jim Oberg's "Red Star in Orbit" and Phil
Clark's "The Soviet Manned Space Programme" in the 1980s, which to a great
extent sparked my own interest in this field.

Of course, what sets "Challenge to Apollo" apart from these and other
previous Western publications is that it benefits from the massive amounts
of information that have become available from the Russians since they
opened the floodgates in the glasnost era. We saw bits of that new
information scattered all over the place in various Western space magazines
throughout the 1990s, but much of it remained inaccessible to Western
historians either because it was never translated or because the source
material was too hard to come by. Asif Siddiqi got down to the colossal
task of collecting all the bits and piecing them together into a
coherent story  and has done so brilliantly.

While nitpickers will always find tiny mistakes, the last thing Asif Siddiqi
should be criticized of is indulging in unfounded speculation, which
unfortunately has been a trademark of many earlier Western books on the
Soviet space programme. I would estimate that 80 % or more of the sources
used are Russian, so that the book to a large extent is a synthesis of what
the Russians themselves have written about their space programme both during
and after the era of censorship. This is not to say that Asif Siddiqi has
just blindly copied all that information. He analyzes it in a well-balanced
way and compares it with what is available from Western sources. "Challenge
to Apollo" will hopefully also help debunk some of the persisent myths about
the Soviet manned space programme that have remained alive throughout the
90s. The book is also fascinating to read in that it blends technical
details with historical background and personal information
about the characters involved. The sheer size of the book and the copious
footnotes on just about every page testify to the fact that this is the
result of a tremendous amount of perseverance and enthusiasm. In fact, one
wonders how Asif managed to write a book like this in the time that he did
(essentially six years from start to finish, I gather from the preface). For
many it would probably take just about a lifetime (I know it would for me!).

This is without doubt the most comprehensive and accurate history of the
Soviet manned space programme (until 1974) that can be written at this
point. As the author points out himself in the bibliographic essay, it is
now a matter of waiting until primary documents from government and
Communist Party levels as well as from the design bureaus themselves become
available to fill in all the blanks.  Let me say in conclusion that this
book is not only a must for Western space buffs, but also for our Russian
friends, who ironically do not have a comparable book in their own language
covering this aspect of the Soviet space programme in such depth (which is
not in any way meant as criticism). For them it will be equally thrilling to
see the declassified information of the past 15 years or so assembled in one
book.

Bart Hendrickx