SOVIET ROCKETRY

Reviewed 9/14/2002

SOVIET ROCKETRY: Past, Present, and Future Michael Stoiko New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970				Rating: 5.0 High
ISBN-13 978-0-03-081865-3
ISBN 0-03-081865-6	272pp.	HC/BWI	$?

Long shrouded in secrecy, the Soviet Union's development of rocketry resulted in a host of impressive achievements. Michael Stoiko's book lays bare a good many of those achievements, as well as describing their antecedents, including the pioneering theoretical work of Tsiolkovsky. The schoolteacher from Kaluga had many disciples in Russia, and they established the widespread knowledge base that was tapped to give the USSR its early lead in the Cold War.

Plentifully illustrated with black and white photographs, Soviet Rocketry is organized as a taxonomy. It describes the various families of launch vehicles and spacecraft, and gives brief biographies of the cosmonauts as well as notable engineers and scientists in Soviet aeronautics and astronautics. While far from comprehensive (and now somewhat dated), it is a very worthwhile reference.