The Race: The Complete True Story of How America Beat Russia to the Moon

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Amazon.com Review When young Jim Schefter was a stringer for the *Houston Chronicle* and later *Life* magazine, he scored the plum reporting assignment of the 1960s--close-up coverage of the tense, heady race to space between the Americans and the Soviets. That pivotal decade in space exploration gave us near misses, giddy victories, and tragic failures that are hard to even imagine now as we yawn at the ubiquitous "routine shuttle launch." But the space race back then was deadly serious stuff: America's best and brightest scientists were teamed up with bold cowboy astronauts to win what was then seen as the most visible, most crucial battle in the cold war. And Jim Schefter--thanks to an exclusive contract *Life* had inked with the astronauts and their families--sat front-row center, from the earliest launches on to Neil Armstrong's hastily composed words as he stepped off the *Eagle*. Armed with copious notes, reams of NASA and Soviet documents, and countless closed-door, at times embarrassing anecdotes, Schefter recounts the tit-for-tat one-upmanship of those early days in *The Race*, going as far back as the post-WWII grab for Nazi rocket technology (Schefter reveals that many joked at the time that the U.S.-Soviet race was being conducted by the Germans--"our Germans versus their Germans"). Schefter ably conveys the era's tension and exhilaration, jumping back and forth between the U.S. and Russian teams with smart, *Superfriends* pacing (think "meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice..."), while also offering up solid historical and technical context and many uncomfortably funny asides (including stories about masturbating space monkeys and drunken astronauts out to stud). *--Paul Hughes* From Publishers Weekly Thirty years after the U.S. reached the Moon, taking a space race lead from which it would never look back, Schefter comes along to do the looking back. The author, who covered the space race for Time-Life and the Houston Chronicle, transmits colorfully and authoritatively the subtle infighting among the astronauts, the complex nature of lesser-known people like manned-flight champion Bob Gilruth, and the American leaders struggling with military, scientific and public relations concerns. Readers are transported inside the satellite where Enos the monkey becomes frustrated after an electrical malfunction, and taken to a cocktail party where the virtues of a large command center are hashed out. Schefter also gives ample scrutiny to various Russians, documenting the courage of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, the braggadocio of Soviet powerhouse Khrushchev and the leadership of Sergei Korolev, father of the Soviet space program. Schefter consistently waxes patriotic and at times veers into the arcane ("tumble runs rotated the pod every two seconds, throwing the astronaut inside from positive to negative g's with each rotation"), but he tells an engrossing tale filled with fascinating bits of triviaAhe describes how Alan Shepard and Bill Dana pulled a practical joke on Wally Schirra by submerging his pleasure boat. Most importantly, however, Schefter deploys an expert grasp of narrative to escalate the excitement even as he informs. His book is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to relive the historic period of the space raceAor for those learning about it for the first time. (June) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.