Race to the Moon: America's Duel with the Soviets

By William B. Breuer

Book Overview

Race to the Moon is a suspenseful thriller about the 30-year clash between the United States and the Soviet Union to be the first to put a man on the moon. This true account is heavy with intrigue, espionage, and controversy. Beginning with a 1961 pledge by President John F. Kennedy to plant the Stars and Stripes on the lunar surface by the end of the decade, the story flashes back to the first days of World War II. At that time, England was tipped off by a high Nazi official that the Third Reich was developing revolutionary long-range rockets.

This same source clandestinely provided documents that shocked British scientists: The Germans were 25 years ahead of England and the United States in rocket development And then, in September 1944, 60-foot-long V-2 rockets, for which there was no defense, began raining down on London, causing enormous destruction and loss of life. Even while the fighting was still raging in Germany in the spring of 1945, a handful of young U.S. Army officers scored a colossal coup: They connived to steal 100 of the huge V-2s that had been found in an underground factory. They were dismantled and slipped by train out of Germany, destination White Sands, New Mexico. Then began a no-holds-barred search for German rocket scientists in the chaos of a defeated Third Reich, with the Americans and British on one side and the Russians on the other. Within weeks of the close of the war, Wernher von Braun and 126 of his rocket team members were corraled, shipped to the United States, and began working secretly on missile development. At the same time, the Soviets literally kidnapped other German rocket scientists and sent them to Russia to continue their space work. In the years ahead, Wernher von Braun and his German rocket team, nearly all of whom became naturalized citizens of the United States, collaborated with American scientists to overcome enormous space achievements by the Soviets--and bungling by Washington politicians--to send Neil Armstrong scampering about on the moon in 1969.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0275944816
• ISBN13: 9780275944810
• Release Date: July 1993
• Publisher: Praeger
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Great story!!

Fascinating and well told story from the conception of space travel in the 1930s to the Moon landing. Much more to the story than you would imagine. Very intriguing and exciting story. A must read for any WWII historian.

An exciting but flawed book

Race to the Moon is primarily an action/adventure/spy story. Thing is, this story is true. Fascinating accounts of the German development of rockets, their use in WWII, the exciting accounts of the United States' efforts to aquire this technology at the end of the war, and the desire of von Braun and his team to find the Americans. Intresting accounts of von Braun and team's early expereiences in the U.S. during the late 40's and 50's. However, don't expect this book to teach you much about the Soviet effort, it is glossed over. The book is also light on the technology of the US/Soviet space race. For example, on page three, it has first man in spce Yuri Garagrin orbiting the earth for four and a half days! On page 179, it has the entire Apollo spacecraft stack injected into orbit by the first stage! (I'll bet von Braun didn't know he could leave the second stage off.) And a picture of a Saturn 1B is misidentified as a Saturn V. With these kinds of obvious errors, it makes me wonder what other errors are in this book. For better sources of inforamation on Apollo try A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin, for the Soviet story try Korolev by James Harford.