Cold War Space Sleuths: The Untold Secrets of the Soviet Space Program

by Dominic Phelan (Editor)

“Space Sleuths of the Cold War” relates for the first time the inside story of the amateur spies who monitored the Soviet space program during the Cold War. It is written by many of those “space sleuths” themselves and chronicles the key moments in their discovery of hidden history. This book shows that dedicated observers were often better than professionals at interpreting that information coming out of the USSR during the dark days of the Cold War. This book takes a unique approach to the history of Soviet spaceflight – looking at the personal stories of some of the researchers as well as the space secrets the Soviets tried to keep hidden. The fascinating account often reads like a Cold War espionage novel.

“Space Sleuths of the Cold War” includes an impressive list of contributors, such Editor Dominic Phelan, giving an overall history of the Cold War hunt for Soviet space secrets. Space writer Brian Harvey reveals his own personal search through official Soviet radio and magazines to find out what they were (and weren’t) revealing to the outside world at the height of the space race. Sven Grahn from Sweden details his own 40 year quest to understand what was happening on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Professional American historian Asif Siddiqi explores his own adventures in the once secret Russian archives – often seeing documents never before read by Westerners. Dutch cosmonaut researcher Bert Vis provides an inside account of the Yuri Gagarin training center in Moscow. Belgian researcher Bart Hendrickx’s  details his important translation of the 1960s’ diaries of cosmonaut team leader General Kamanin. Pioneer space sleuth James Oberg’s shares his memories of his own notable ‘scoops.' Paris-based writer Christian Lardier recounts the efforts of French space sleuths – whose work was frequently overlooked in the USA and Britain because of the language barrier.

Genres: History

319 pages, Paperback

First published November 21, 2012

Reviews

[Nikky Southerland · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing book.

Presented as somewhat of an outsiders history of the Soviet Space program with a bit of a mystery vibe to it, this book actually consists of a series of autobiographies and personal accounts of the journalists and amateur observers who worked to pull back the cloak of secrecy.

The presentation largely doesn't work. Although a few of the chapters are well-written and focus on the material at hand, most of them tend to wander too much into irrelevancy to be of much interest or use.

[Raughley Nuzzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

While some of the essays in this book had an interesting hook or interesting content, most of them took on a tone of "And then I met this guy, and then I presented a paper at a conference, and then...." Instead of providing information about the Soviet Space Program (much less untold secrets thereof), the essays were autobiographical anecdotes that assumed readers would be intimately familiar with the titular secrets.

I got the impression of a chummy gang of space nuts writing self-promoting profiles and patting each other on the back for it. Some of the chapters were fascinating, but most were incredibly dull. I think the book needed an editor who wasn't as intimately acquainted with his authors and who could help keep the book on track.