Foreward by Captain James A Lovell.
Andy Chaikin, who brought us the incredible adventures of the Apollo Moon missions in his previous book 'A Man On The Moon', now widens the scope of our knowledge to the world's conquest of space with this excellent book. He takes us from the origins of spaceflight, where we meet the early pioneers, Tsiolkovsky, Goddard and Korolev and see their triumphs and tragedies. We learn about the human flights of the Mercury, Gemini, Vostok and Soyuz programmes; the unmanned probes to Venus and Mars; the success of Apollo and the failure of the Russian Lunar Programme. The text and photos rejuvenate the excitement first felt when Sputnik surprised the world; when Yuri Gagarian made the first Earth orbit and when Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon.
So, fasten your seatbelt and launch into space with the first page. You will be mesmerized by Andy Chaikin's informative text and the remarkable photos as you journey through this book until the last page returns you safely back to earth.