The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned

by John Strausbaugh

A witty, deeply researched history of the surprisingly ramshackle Soviet space program, and how its success was more spin than science.

In the wake of World War II, with America ascendant and the Soviet Union devastated by the conflict, the Space Race should have been over before it started. But the underdog Soviets scored a series of victories--starting with the 1957 launch of Sputnik and continuing in the years following--that seemed to achieve the impossible. It was proof, it seemed, that the USSR had manpower and collective will that went beyond America's material advantages. They had asserted themselves as a world power.

But in  The Wrong Stuff , John Strausbaugh tells a different story. These achievements were amazing, yes, but they were also PR victories as much as scientific ones. The world saw a Potemkin spaceport; the internal facts were much sloppier, less impressive, more dysfunctional. The Soviet supply chain was a disaster, and many of its machines barely worked. The cosmonauts aboard its iconic launch of the Vostok 1 rocket had to go on a special diet, and take off their space suits, just to fit inside without causing a failure. Soviet scientists, under intense government pressure, had essentially made their rocket out of spit and band aids, and hurried to hide their work as soon as their worldwide demonstration was complete.

With a witty eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, John Strausbaugh takes us behind the Iron Curtain, and shows just how little there was to find there.
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Space, Science, Russia, Audiobook, Technology

272 pages, Hardcover

Published June 4, 2024

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

It turns out you can judge a book by its cover! The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned by John Strausbaugh tells you everything you need to know about what's inside and it does not disappoint. The falling rocket picture is also a wonderful touch.

This is actually a harder book to write than one would expect. Strausbaugh needs to tell the story of the Soviet space program, but it would be bad form to celebrate too hard as a not insignificant amount of people died due to shoddy Soviet workmanship (or lack thereof). I think the author nails the tone, though. Strausbaugh drops in funny comments, points out ridiculous lapses in basic safety, but at the same time is almost in awe that people would work like this in life and death scenarios. There is a begrudging respect for these communist cowboys, but let's not take it too far. There is way more mockery which is well deserved.

If you are a purist who does not want humor in your history, then this book is not for you. I think you are missing out, though. I laughed, but I learned. Most importantly, I had a heck of a lot of fun reading it.

(This book was provided as a review copy by the publisher.)

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was disappointing. The subject matter, a popular history of the Soviet space program, was interesting, but the author, who appears to have no Russia expertise and to have just cribbed from memoirs and other histories, chose to tell it as a witless low brow comedy. The author constantly traffics in bland Soviet stereotypes--there are countless jokes about poor quality Soviet cigarettes--and tropes about Communism that belong in a 80's movie. The author's decision to frame everything about the Soviet space program as a lackadaisical "wrong stuff" endeavor means he provides little explanation of how the Soviets were able to accomplish so much despite their technological shortcomings. The framing is also odd in the context of how many Astronauts the shuttle killed and the fact that we relied on the Russian space program to get astronauts to ISS for the better part of a decade. It also leaves the reader wondering how the Soviets kept failing up--going from tragedies to launching Mir. Two stars because it led me to a lot of interesting Wikipedia articles--Soyuz 11, yikes.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Breezy, and overly reliant on secondary sources. An enjoyable read, though, and I learned a good deal. The bullet point: the Soviet space program was an embarrassingly under-funded, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation that put international one-upsmanship over crew safety or design refinement. Despite their run of early successes, their secretive and analog operation plateaued by the mid-to-late 1960s.

Some of the stories are truly harrowing, and it's shocking that the Soviet program didn't leave a larger trail of dead in its wake.

[Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished:

"The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned"

By: John Strausbaugh

New York: Public Affairs, 2024.

Chronicles the Soviet space program how it did the impossible with poor technical skill and antiquated materials. The author argues that the cosmonauts were the true cowboys compared to their American counterparts. While I didn't like it that there weren't end notes or an index, the writing style was terrific.

[Doris · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars, rounded up.

The title pretty well says it all. It was astonishing how haphazard the Soviet space program was. I was also a little surprised at how closely the space race was tied to the Cold War and arms race. Perhaps because most of the books I've read about the American side of space exploration were written after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Soviet role seems to get downplayed.

The author is frequently flippant. While he can be entertaining, it also gets annoying after a while, hence the 1/2 star deduction.

[Chaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a really wonderful and interesting book, and thanks to Hank Stuever for the tip. A fascinating look at the old Soviet era space program, and really the old Soviet Union in general. It confirms a lot of suspicions I felt about that part of the world over the years... Certainly a country that can't keep grocery shelves stocked, and produces truly terrible cars is taking shortcuts to get to space, right?

Yep. They sure were!

Very enjoyable read.

[Lawrence Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the Audible audiobook version.

John Strausbaugh has written an excellent history of the remarkably lucky Soviet space program. I mention lucky, because while I'm sure there were talented engineers, scientists, and cosmonauts that were part of the program, it seems that they're success was always muddled by controversy, looming disaster, and injury and death.

The dysfunctions of Soviet governance are on full display in The Wrong Stuff. I read The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe earlier this year and this was an fun companion piece to Strausbaugh's work. Whereas the Americans were admittedly slow but methodical and technically proficient, the Soviets were fast and reckless. More than a few people were killed due to preventable catastrophes in the Soviet space program. This book is a great overview of those catastrophes, and the incredible successes that somehow occurred through the constant explosions and failures.

This book is also surprisingly lighthearted and funny a times, despite the somewhat dark material, so it was actually an enjoyable book as well. Soviet resignation to their crappy tech is marked with excellent dark humor that humanizes them. But around every corner, the seriousness of their endeavor is shown, if not by death in space, then by removal on Earth in Soviet bureacracy.

A high recommend from me for any space history enthusiasts!

[Simms · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent history of the Soviet space program, in all its shambolic, ramshackle "glory". The book was an interesting double-bill with Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, touching on the history (and failures) of parallel space programs, except where Challenger leans on pathos and human tragedy, The Wrong Stuff is often written with a more humorous, even sometimes colloquial tone. It's never outright comedic, necessarily, in the way of the film The Death of Stalin, but there's something of the black comedy about the dysfunction of the Soviet state, and at times you have a "laugh to keep from crying" kind of situation (most emblematized by the Soyuz 11 disaster, where ground control's response to a warning light about a faulty pressure seal was to tape a piece of paper over the light and proceed with reentry and three people died). Worth reading for any space-history enthusiast.

Thanks to NetGalley and Public Affairs for the ARC.

[Kaelee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited for this book and it had potential. Unfortunately, most of the book reads like an editor never did a pass over it. Names are misspelled, dates are wrong, and the later chapters are full of grammatical errors. The way the author jumps around in time and compares and contrasts events can make it appear like events that happened years later influenced the decision-making of the past. Much like the author says of the Soviet space program, the entire book seems to be filled with The Wrong Stuff.

[Andrew Breza · Rating 5 out of 5]

An alternately entertaining, alarming, and surprising history of the Soviet space program. Well written and engaging throughout.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent high level summary/timeline of some of the highlights and lowlights of Soviet space program, although spent too much time story telling with personal interjections and strayed a bit too far from a more factual, unbiased retelling.

I would be remiss to not point out a mistake regarding Wally Funk’s flight in 2021. She reached over 100km on her flight and did indeed cross the Karmen line, despite the author’s claim to the contrary.

It was a bit ironic the author criticized the lack of recognition of the Mercury 13 women, while not doing the precursory research to prevent himself from doing the same thing. As a wise man once said "He could save others from [institutional minimization], but not himself"

[Val Ras · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not historical work or journalism. It's a series of anecdotes and bad copies of some other sources, sometimes quite questionable. It's full of small factual errors (no, Irkutsk is not and never was a part of Jewish Autonomous Region). I don't look back to Soviet Union through rose-colored glasses, but author's attitude borders on ridiculous. Just one example, describing Khruschev arrival to the US... "He stepped down ....... trailing his sturdy common-law wife Nina and other stout females". WTF?

[Tim Armstrong · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel a little disappointed by this book, even though it's pretty good. A popular history of the Soviet space program it's a decent, if brief overview. There's some humour or tongue-in-cheek writing here and it appears the author relied a lot on secondary sources. I think more primary research would have made this a more informative book.

Overall decent, but I was hoping for more.

[Nathan Taake · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Typical Wrong-stuff” then proceeds to list a success.
Also this guy is allergic to doing his own research. Wow

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

A humorous look at the Soviet space program in all its tragedies and cover ups. Also highlights some of the American miss steps and messaging.

[Jeff DePree · Rating 5 out of 5]

If, like me, you spent your childhood attending space camp, playing Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space, and writing academic essays about extraplanetary monkeys, then this is almost certainly the book for you!

[Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

They didn’t have anything like the resources the Americans could put into their space program. They jerry-rigged and improvised like mad to work around inferior equipment, parts that were never delivered, intramural squabbling among departments.

WHAT’S THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- A witty, deeply researched history of the surprisingly ramshackle Soviet space program, and how its success was more spin than science.

- Even in their leisure suits the trio still couldn’t be squeezed into the capsule, so Korolev asked for another sacrifice. The capsule’s cosmonaut-ejecting apparatus had to go.

BOOK TITLE
- If the American program set out to prove, with meticulous care, that it had the Right Stuff, the rash, slapdash, yet undeniably successful efforts of the Soviet program demonstrated the reverse. Call it the Wrong Stuff.

SAFETY LAST
- Three small Soviet men in leisure suits waiting to be fired into space without helmets, without space suits, with a limited supply of oxygen, with virtually no safety gear, and with no way to exit the capsule quickly if the launch went wrong.

- The Americans, being Americans, spent wads of cash on high-tech electronic pyrotechnic devices. The Soviets, being Soviets, used what Popular Mechanics once described as “an oversized wooden match.” When the R-7 was standing on the pad, techies scrambled under it and shoved broomstick-length rods of birch wood up into all of the combustion chambers.

DIFFERENT APPROACH TO OPENNESS THAN THE U.S.
- Operating their space program in secrecy had obvious propaganda advantages. They could exaggerate successes, like Voskhod, and hide all but the most obvious failures, while NASA ran its program out in the open, with many public embarrassments.

AD HOC DEVELOPMENT
- Sputnik was built quick, on the fly, by hand and ad hoc.

POLITICAL INFIGHTING AND SHORT-TERM OBJECTIVES
- Where the Americans concentrated all their civilian space activities in the one entity NASA, Soviet leaders acted almost whimsically in spreading their support out among jealous rivals.

- Instead of long-term goals, they lurched forward to satisfy their political leaders’ hunger for bragging rights.

ABSURD TIMELINES
- Khrushchev was so pleased with Sputnik that he asked Korolev to launch something even bigger and better into orbit for the November 7 anniversary of the Revolution—three weeks away. Thinking on his feet, as dealing with Khrushchev often required, Korolev said he could put a dog into orbit next. Khrushchev loved it.

RUSSIAN HISTORY OF STEALING TECH TO GET AHEAD
- But he was also following Russian tradition. As far back as Peter the Great in the 1600s the Russians had borrowed, bought, or stolen technology from the more advanced West. When the Soviets were developing their own atomic bomb, Stalin insisted that his scientists precisely follow the stolen blueprints of the American ones. No innovations, no deviation. For a long-range bomber to deliver this bomb, he ordered Tupolev to recreate down to the last rivet a B-29 that had fallen into Russian hands at the end of the war. Tupolev glumly complied. The result was the Tu-4. Displaying the bleak sarcasm Soviet intellectuals often relied on, Tupolev called the Tu-4 “a locally built Boeing product.” Years later, the supersonic Tu-144 would be an inferior copy of the Concorde, duly nicknamed the Concordski. The Soviets would even build a knockoff Space Shuttle.

BRUTE FORCE AND REDUNDANCY TO COMPENSATE FOR POOR TECH
- How were the Soviets dwarfing American rockets? The truth was another close-held secret: the Soviets were years behind their competition in the development of strong, lightweight alloys, and in computers, and in the miniaturization of instruments.

- It’s a stunning marker of Soviet dysfunction that no cosmonauts flew with onboard digital computers until 1980.

- Instruments were so unreliable that one or two backup systems were built in, adding to the weight. Also, to make up for their imprecise targeting, they packed as much explosive as possible into the warhead, adding yet more weight. Soviet rockets had to be so big and strong just to get themselves and their payloads off the pad.

INSTITUTIONAL CULTURE OF NOT REPORTING PROBLEMS
- Titov dutifully reported all his problems—and his career suffered for it. Some people in the program believed that it showed “a lack of character” for him to say anything. Cosmonauts, like fighter pilots, weren’t supposed to admit when they felt ill. They were supposed to man up and shut up. Because he admitted to having so many problems on this flight, his mental and physical fitness for future missions was called into question.

THE PROJECTED IMAGE OF FEMALE EQUALITY WAS A FARCE
- The truth is that the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, got to go because, once again, the Soviets were worried that the Americans were going to beat them to it. It was another one of Khrushchev’s publicity stunts. Had the Soviets known the truth—that NASA was way, way far from even entertaining the idea of female astronauts, much less letting one of them go to outer space—it’s highly unlikely that Tereshkova would have flown either.

- Around the world Tereshkova’s flight was hailed as a great leap forward for women. Except, not surprisingly, in America.

SOVIET SPACE SHUTTLE (BURAN)
- But there was another transportation problem: how to get the Buran from Glushko’s shop outside of Moscow to Baikonur in the wilderness of the Kazakhstan steppe. It was too big and heavy to go by rail or road. The answer was yet another piece of gargantuan engineering, the Antonov An-225, a jet that would fly the Buran piggyback to the Cosmodrome.

- The An-225 was built at the Antonov shop in Kyiv and given a Ukrainian name, Mriya, Ukrainian for Dream. It was a behemoth, the biggest aircraft ever built, with six engines, thirty-two wheels of landing gear, and wings wider than the Statue of Liberty is tall. It’s been noted that the cargo hold was so long (142 feet) that the Wright brothers could have made their first flight (120 feet) entirely inside it.

- That February, as one of the first acts of the invasion, missiles fired by Russian forces smashed Mriya, the [An-225], where it sat at the airfield.

“WHAT DID I MISS WHILE I WAS AWAY?”
- Krikalev and Volkov were up there when Gorbachev announced the end of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, leaving the two citizens hanging, literally. They were suddenly men without a country, holding useless passports and Communist Party membership cards.

*** *** *** *** ***
FACTOIDS
- the Laika-inspired Soviet dogsmonaut in Guardians of the Galaxy 3;

- Finnish freedom fighters desperately defending their country against Soviet invasion forces in the Winter War of 1941 threw homemade petrol bombs at Soviet tanks. Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, outrageously claimed that Soviet bombers were not dropping ordnance on the Finns, but food parcels. The Finns sarcastically nicknamed their petrol bombs Molotov cocktails, a drink to wash down the fictious food.

- America in 1959 was also very much One Nation Under God—the phrase had just been added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.

- Gagarin went into the history books as the first human to orbit the Earth, but in fact where he dusted down was a bit short of a full orbit. The real first human to fully orbit the planet would be Gherman Titov, but he would spend his life relegated to being Gagarin’s also-ran.

- Khrushchev and his generals wanted spy satellites because they knew the Americans were mapping Soviet territory practically inch by inch with their own very successful one, code-named CORONA. That’s not an acronym for Collecting Orbital Reconnaissance… or such. It was just a name a project planner came up with as he gazed down at his Smith-Corona typewriter.

- the most-nuked region on the planet is a zone of Kazakhstan called by the appropriately sci-fi name the Semipalatinsk Polygon. From the very first Soviet atom bomb test in 1949 to 1989, no fewer than 483 nuclear devices were detonated there.

- Leonov revealed that his helmet was equipped with a suicide pill that he could have taken as an alternative to suffocating when his oxygen ran out.

- When Soviet spies in the US got wind of this program and reported it, the Soviet military weren’t fooled for a second by the “laboratory” bluff. They asked Chelomei to develop their own top secret counter-MOL, called Almaz (Diamond). According to space historian Brian Harvey in The New Russian Space Programme, his design included “crew quarters, radar remote-sensing equipment, cameras, two small re-entry capsules for sending data back to Earth and even… rapid-fire cannon to defend the station against attacking American spaceplanes!”

- It “began to fall like a stone” the 192 kilometers to Earth, scoring a fiery trail downward at ballistic speed and at a terrifyingly steep angle, with a force of up to 21 g’s crushing the cosmonauts, who said it felt like having a car sitting on your chest. (Fighter pilots experience up to 10 g’s max.)

HAHA
- The smaller Vaz was a knockoff of a Fiat, but cost the Soviet worker the equivalent of a Lamborghini, and you had to wait nine or ten years to get it. Russians told a joke when there were no KGB snitches around. Ronald Reagan enjoyed repeating it. A Soviet worker puts his rubles down for a car and is told to come back to pick it up in ten years. He says, “Morning or afternoon?” The guy behind the counter says, “What difference will that make?” The worker replies, “The plumber is coming in the morning.”

- The pipes that fed the supercooled liquid oxygen to the rockets’ tanks frequently sprung leaks. The fuel was so touchy that once fueling had begun, turning off the supply to seal a leak could lead to a disastrous explosion. Voskresensky would walk over to the leak, wrap his jaunty red beret around it, unzip his trousers, take out his penis, and piss on the beret. “The minus 297-degree liquid oxygen would freeze the urine on contact, sealing the leak.”

- converting a bomber into the Tu-104, the world’s first passenger jet. It was infamously unsafe. A Soviet joke went: “Tu-104 is the fastest plane in the world. In just five minutes it will carry you to the grave.” His supersonic Tu-22 bomber was even scarier. Rushed into production with a typical Soviet attitude of fly-it-now-fix-it-later, it killed so many crews that they called it the Maneater and the Errorplane. The only thing pilots liked about it was that it used an alcohol coolant, which they drained off and drank to toast their luck if they survived a flight.

- Khrushchev was just as ignorant about the US. When told that Eisenhower wanted them to spend a few days at Camp David, he replied suspiciously, “Kemp David? What sort of camp is it?” He hadn’t evaded getting put in any of Stalin and Beria’s camps to fly halfway across the world and get put in another.

- “Mykola!” “Yes!” “The moskali [derogatory slang for Russians] have flown to the Moon!” “All of them?” “No, just one.” “So why are you bothering me?”

- “The hatch isn’t pressurized! What should we do? What should we do?” Obviously they couldn’t disengage if the hatch wasn’t completely sealed, unless they were in their spacesuits and helmets. They tried various procedures suggested by the techies on the ground. Nothing worked. Ground control finally advised them to tape a piece of paper over the warning light and proceed.

- About the size of two school buses, [Sky Lab] broke into harmless chunks as it fell. When pieces of it littered the ground around the Australian town of Esperance, Esperance cheekily fined NASA $400 for littering. NASA never paid.

- At a dinner in Houston, Leonov stood to make a toast. He wanted to say, “To a successful future.” But because he was still learning English, and maybe because it was not the first toast of the evening, it came out more like “To a sex-full future.” In a heartbeat of silence the Americans all looked at one another, then shrugged and said, yeah, we’ll drink to that.

- The Americans were sure their rooms were bugged, as all their accommodations surely were. So Stafford stood in the middle of his room and loudly proclaimed to no one, “The Russians are very wonderful and hospitable people, but it’s too bad they decided to be so cheap about this hotel. There’s not even a fly swatter.” Coming back a few hours later, they found that “every room had a fly swatter. Better yet, every fly in my room had been killed and dumped in the unflushed toilet.” After that they started “talking to the walls” whenever they wanted something. They complained to the walls about the lousy Russian beer, and superior Czech, East German, and Egyptian beers appeared that afternoon. “‘Talking to the walls’ worked better than room service.”

*** *** *** *** ***

BONUS
- Sergei Korolev, Chief Designer: https://youtu.be/YQfy5u3yOZQ?si=wKP8R...

- R7 Semyorka rocket (put Gregarin and Sputnik into orbit): https://youtu.be/vZLYFZqCMzE?si=9wtKU...

- Sputnik satellite (1957): https://youtu.be/g2WaJdflqT0?si=rcpLH...

- What Sputnik broadcast sounded like: https://youtu.be/lfnfNe31fmY?si=Dxe6z...

- What happened to Sputnik?: https://youtu.be/tMzrbzYWA1U?si=ZzpRg...

- Luna 2 (first ever probe to moon, 1959): https://youtu.be/OKqLNI1kCnI?si=t3_rA...

- Nedelin launch pad disaster (1960): https://youtu.be/8RZzYNo8HO4?si=Vny70...

- Yuri Gagarin (first man in space, 1961): https://youtu.be/KANuFlelQ5k?si=GhT17...

- Vostok: The World’s First Spaceship: https://youtu.be/JALjtQnSEg4?si=yfd-M...

- Voskhod 1 (a space flight with no space suits): https://youtu.be/DGH72f1rQiM?si=S1Zkj...

- Town in Wisconsin has yearly ‘Sputnikfest’: https://youtu.be/8xTj5NIft9A?si=arv6A...

- First space walk (1965): https://youtu.be/c5ZtBhQQPjM?si=ayuCr...

- TP-82 (survival gun given to astronauts for re-entry): https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/01/t...

- Movie trailer for Russian film ‘The Spacewalker’ (2017 film about first space walk): https://youtu.be/zp8_4RXuDdk?si=WrYH4...

- Luna 9 probe sends pictures back from the Moon (1966): https://youtu.be/a9GpfR2vpSs?si=KppPQ...

- Death of Komarov during Soyuz 1 mission (1967): https://youtu.be/617lH8IfL-U?si=dHcSh...

- Plaque left on Moon by Apollo 15 (U.S.) to commemorate fallen astronauts (1971): https://youtu.be/ZJXvteSRUcQ?si=MVAB1...

- Space adaptation syndrome (space sickness): https://youtu.be/qJf_Nci_Ezg?si=nFJCJ...

- Point Nemo (most remote place at sea; satellite graveyard): https://youtu.be/T3bkyOxiqXE?si=hsNuD...

- Death of the An-225 (world’s largest plane) in Ukraine invasion: https://youtu.be/pi2J72kin2U?si=Ob8Sy...

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, well written nonfiction about Soviets in space? Utter catnip.

[Lukas Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one! Quick read and a great look into the Soviet mindset

[Dima O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty funny overall, may be good reading for anyone that's still fooled by Russian propaganda.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher PublicAffairs for an advance copy of this history of the Soviet space program and how these men and women were far, far more braver going into the heavens than most of the world ever thought.

What comes up must come down. In the exploration of space, l that is sometimes part of the mission, sometimes not. Going into the heavens and returning to Earth takes a lot of work, a melding of math, engineering, skill, communication, and luck that can have tremendous results, or tremendous tragedies. The Soviet Union was first into space, with a satelitte, a dog, and a man. To do this they ignored all that was previously written, except for the luck, and accomplished amazing things. Things that were unsustainable, and led to many people losing their lives. The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned by John Strausbaugh is a sometimes scary, sometimes funny, sometimes just plan weird history of the efforts made by the Soviet Union to control space, and even more control the message of how they got there.

The book begins with as seemed the case in Russia at the time, with a mission to put three people into space, beating the Americans to the punch. To do this, there was no special rocket built, no new capsule, the Soviet scientists just took what they had, stripped it to the bone and sent three men into space, sans space suits, or extra oxygen. And somehow they succeeded. This runs through the book. Readers learn of the start of the Soviet rocket program, that was to launch nuclear missiles into America, and at the same time, launch a Soviet citizen into space. The scientists were drawn from the gulags, most of them battling illness, diseases, or in many ways broken in mind and body by there treatment in the camps. While America was a check three times kind of space program, run by ex-Nazis, the Soviets was a now, now now. Mistakes could be hidden, even there launch areas were given fake name and locations. People killed, could be denied, their families told another story, another fate. Strausbaugh looks at the astronauts, Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space, whose life was changed in many many ways. Even the animals, a dog who was trained to flick switches in a space capsule, who escaped the night before he was to be launched into space. Also, the book covers the slow decline, when mistakes, a lack of interest, and a lack of backing began to drain the space program of its mission.

John Strausbaugh has written a very complete and often humourous book about space, that makes one wonder about luck and about taking anything safe and slow. The humour is black in many ways, as the astronauts all seemed to have problems, either dying on the job, or losing their luster due to excessive partying, and lots and lots of drinking. Though I do have to give these people my respect for what they accomplished and did. The book is fascinating, with a real strong narrative the keeps the reader flipping pages, sometimes in incredulity at one is reading, especially when it came to the lack of safety. There are a lot of what seems like Homer Simpson moments, putting tape over a warning light, bathroom habits before launch and more. Strausbaugh has done a lot of research, and makes complicated science easy to understand, be interesting and even more entertaining. Each page has facts, or something that really should have killed a lot more people. And yet.

Recommended for space fans without a doubt. History fans and science fans will enjoy this also, with again a lot of how did they do this. How did they not die? Fiction writers might enjoy this book as it proves that real life is odder than fiction, and there are quite a few events that could really be made into novels. This is the second book I have read by John Strausbaugh, and I am really enjoying his style and craft. I can't wait to read what Strausbaugh's has next.

[Paul Sand · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing was obvious from the get-go: the author, John Strausbaugh, is no fan of the Soviets, or Communism in general. Great! Neither am I. As (even) the cover and the title indicate, this is a warts-and-all look at the history of the Soviet space program. And it turns out to be mostly warts.

It's been a few years since I read Stephen Walker's Beyond, a history of the events leading up to and including Yuri Gagarin's slightly-under-one-orbit flight in April 1961. Safe to say that Strausbaugh's take is less respectful, less academic (no index or endnotes), and more of a (somewhat guilty) pleasure to read.

We know that the Soviets had their share of space disasters, notably Soyuz 1 (killing Vladimir Komarov) and Soyuz 11 (killing Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev). Strausbaugh goes into the gritty details of those failures. But, as he tells the whole story, it's pretty amazing that the body count isn't much higher; the Soviets were very slapdash, explicitly trading off cosmonaut safety against scoring propaganda victories. Example: Gagarin's flight was nearly a disaster due to the failure of his Vostok's reentry module to cleanly separate from its service module. This was a continuing problem with the Vostoks, and continued into the Soyuz spacecrafts.

The book might be a little slapdash itself. Page 107 puts the Apollo 1 disaster (which killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White) in 1963. (It was 1967.) Strausbaugh knows better, and he gets it right later in the book, but (come on) a light fact-check would have caught this.

In other spots, gratuitous and strained US/USSR comparisons are made. Gagarin's post-flight parade placed him and Nikita Khrushchev "in a convertible Zil with the top down, like the Kennedys in Dallas." Wha…?

Strausbaugh does a good job of giving the Soviets personalities, not always complimentary ones. After his flight, Gagarin mishandled his fame, turning into a drunk and a womanizer. His friend/rival Gherman Titov, also succumbed. The famous "chief designer", Sergei Korolev, suffered in Stalin's Gulag for six years before his "meteoric" success in getting the space program off the ground. But he failed dismally in his design of the N-1 rocket, a rough equivalent to the American Saturn V. It never worked, blowing up a lot.

Strausbaugh does pay some respect to Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who might be the closest to Tom Wolfe's famous "Right Stuff". He nearly got killed doing a spacewalk stunt (an impromptu effort to upstage Ed White's upcoming Gemini EVA); he got along famously with his American counterparts during the planning and execution of the Apollo-Soyuz stunt mission.

The Soviets were also notoriously secretive, which caused a lot of speculation they were covering up some cosmonaut deaths. One of the rumor-mongers was Pun Salad fave, Robert A. Heinlein, who penned an article for American Mercury recounting his trip to the USSR with his wife, Virginia; he reported rumors that the May 15, 1960 flight of Korabl-Sputnik 1, the first test flight of the Vostok craft, was actually manned. Nope.

In short, an entertaining read, guaranteed to wipe away any misty watercolor memories of the way the Soviets were. You'd never know from reading it, however, that the American astronaut body count is much higher than Russia's. NASA is also a socialist enterprise, and its safety tradeoffs were merely different in details.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Mission control, to everyone’s relief, ordered them to come home early. They buttoned up Salyut and climbed into the Soyuz, wearing only their leisure suits. Which became a problem when they prepared to disengage and a warning light began to blink. Sounding nearly hysterical at this point, Volkov shouted at ground control, “The hatch isn’t pressurized! What should we do? What should we do?” Obviously they couldn’t disengage if the hatch wasn’t completely sealed, unless they were in their spacesuits and helmets. They tried various procedures suggested by the techies on the ground. Nothing worked. Ground control finally advised them to tape a piece of paper over the warning light and proceed. Read that sentence again. Nothing shouts “Soviet space program!” like that single sentence. Their nerves jangling, the crew did what they were told, crazy and stupid as it sounded. They were that desperate to get the hell away from hell. They covered up the light warning them that the hatch was not entirely sealed, disengaged from Salyut, and headed home. There was no further communication with mission control. The Soyuz 11 DM was tracked reentering the atmosphere as it was programmed to do. It dusted down in Kazakhstan twenty-three days and eighteen hours after lifting off. Rescue teams reached it and opened the hatch. The three men were in there, still strapped to their benches in their leisure suits. They were dead. A quick examination showed nitrogen in their blood, blood in their lungs, and hemorrhaging in their brains—all signs that they had died quick and agonizing deaths when the capsule lost pressure and exposed them to the vacuum of space. They were already dead when the DM, on autopilot, entered the atmosphere. Had they been wearing their spacesuits and helmets, they’d have lived. After making such a spectacle of the brave, happy heroes of the Soviet Union for three weeks on state TV and in all the state-run newspapers, there was no way the government could cover this one up. Their corpses were flown to Moscow for state funerals. The people of the Soviet Union were in shock. It was the worst space tragedy their government had ever told them about.”

[Book Club of One · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a joke that NASA scientists realized a normal pen wouldn't work in space so they spent time and money to create one that would. But the Soviets? They just used a pencil.* While this joke is not mentioned in John Strausbaugh's The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned, the sense of make do and thrift it exhibits is key to the outcome of the space race.

Taking the oppositional meaning from Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff that celebrated the astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury, Strausbaugh documents the history of the Soviet Space program with its focus on propaganda victories above all else, even safety.

Strausbaugh traces the origins of Russian space exploration and rocketry designs from their forebears to the establishment of the Soviet program headquartered in what became known as Star City. Much of the narrative is centered around key post-world war two events, frequently juxtaposing American events against the Soviets.

But the main focus is on how despite corruption, poor materials, a lack of concern for safety and a very tight grip on the release of information the Soviet space program was able to accomplish so much. It is a story representing the conflict between the two ideologies. Some Soviet successes include, the first satellite, the first manned space flight and the first woman in space. Americans had funding, ingenuity and cutting edge materials. Soviets had ingenuity, stubbornness and bulking materials that required excessive redundancy.

A very engaging and entertaining book full of anecdotes and quotes from those who made it possible.

Recommended to readers of 20th Century politics, science of space explorations or modern history.

I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

*Ciara Curtin "Fact of Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil." Scientific American (December 20, 2006). https://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...

[Irl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned offers a captivating deep dive into the Soviet Union's space race often overshadowed by NASA’s triumphs. Narrated in a lively tone, the audiobook starts off with a light, almost jokey approach, which may feel a bit off-putting given the gravity of the subject. However, as the narrative progresses, it finds its footing and delves into the Soviet space programme with a bit more seriousness and respect that the Soviet courage deserves.

One of the standout elements of the book is its fascinating comparisons and contrasts with the U.S. space program. The simplicity of Soviet spacecraft controls, for instance, highlights the vastly different design philosophies between the two nations. While American technology was marked by precision and complexity, the Soviet approach was often rough and functional, a necessity given the constraints of their system. Despite these differences, the bravery of Soviet cosmonauts is undeniable. Their missions, especially the spacewalks and reentry procedures, were far more dangerous. I have a renewed respect for these pioneers of space.

The darker side of the Soviet space programme is well explored, including the staggering death rate and the government's cover-ups of these tragedies. The Soviet Union’s desperation to publicly beat the U.S. in the space race, often at the expense of safety, is a sobering reminder of how politics and pride can lead to tragic consequences. The human cost is laid bare, and it’s chilling to hear just how many lives were sacrificed in the quest to outpace the Americans.

Overall, the audiobook is a compelling listen for anyone interested in space exploration history, offering a detailed and often shocking perspective on the Soviet efforts. While the tone at the beginning may not hit the mark for everyone, the rich content and insight that follow more than make up for it.

[Thomas Bodenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back around 1991, the then-Soviet Union was collapsing. At that time, I was a (relatively) young faculty member who had minored in Russian in college. I was named to a committee which welcomed a group of Russian "biznissmen" and a couple other "officials" to our university to explore the possibilities of co-operation. The chair was my colleague Betty, who was one of the first women to acquire MBA and DBA degrees from the Harvard Business School, and had served as the Chief Economic Advisor to then-Governor Robb of Virginia. She was naïvely effusive about the "goodwill" generated by their visit, and praised their pending arrival. Well, guess what? They were all solely interested in getting drunk, finding women to screw, and generally partying throughout their visit. Only one had been outside of the USSR, so their party wanted only to party, not to have any semblance of a serious discussion.
Well, Betty retired to Florida, and has subsequently passed away, so she is unable to reflect upon her errors of pre-judgment. I am using this anecdote as prologue to my review of this book, which shows, via documents revealed only after the Gorbachev-Yeltsin period of Glasnost, that the vaunted Soviet Space program was more a triumph of public relations. The USSR was plagued by obsolete technology, managerial ineptitude, and a closed communication culture which valued blind obedience over analytical thought. What they managed to accomplish was to convince the United States that their technology was the equal, if not better, than the US's, through bluff, bluster, and skillful uses of propaganda.
The author is more of a journalist than a historian, writing humorously, though he makes the most of his sources. A most informative reading- the only reason why I didn't give it five stars is that the book lacks photographs and maps.

[Jon Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in hardback, checked out from the library. This book takes a particularly harsh and dismissive look at the frailties and foibles of the Soviet space program, of which there were admittedly many. The author starts at the beginning, where in the immediate aftermath of WW2 in Europe the Soviets captured the remaining German rocket scientists that hadn't already been scooped up by the US and its allies, and put them to work alongside their home-grown technicians to begin producing rockets. The book mostly follows the manned-spaceflight branch of the Soviet space program, which of course provides the most hair-raising anecdotes, although that most famous of Soviet unmanned space shots (Sputnik in 1957) is covered, along with the various Luna landers aimed at the Moon. The manned program is covered starting with Gagarin and going to the breakup of the USSR in the days of the Mir space station. The writing style is highly satirical, mostly played for guffaws and "can-you-believe-they-really-did-that?" face palms. I have read quite a bit about the Soviet space program, so there was nothing new to me here. I had already heard all these episodes in one form or another, and usually in a much less condescending tone. Yes, the Soviet program was initially driven by propaganda stunts and one-upping the US program, and yes, their hardware was low-tech compared to NASA's gear, but lost in all the hardy-har-har are the genuine accomplishments of the program, and the bravery and dedication of the engineers and the cosmonaut corps. Still, if you're looking for a somewhat amusing account of the Soviet space program that highlights only the lowlights, then this book is for you. Three out of five stars.

[Jack Bingham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pros: Easy read from start to finish. He covers an almost 20-year period of time to give you the information you need without the fluff. His writing style has a personality to it, somewhat informal but informative. It is a fairly specific subject that has not been touched on in recent years. It it basically a collection of first-hand accounts and references from other books written by the people that lived through the history. At times he references videos, images, and other novels you can read if you're interested. This is like a nice introduction to the Soviet space program and what the accomplished. However, it takes a lot of time focusing on the weird/controversial ways they did it. I recommend it to history buffs, fans of Soviet/Cold War history, etc.

Cons: He gives their space program and government credit where credit is due, but there is bias here. The author definitely feels some kind of way about the Soviet Union and uses the novel to explain why it was inferior to the United States and NASA. This is fair to a certain degree. You can read first hand accounts from those that lived through the space program and Soviet Union. They largely support his opinions. But it detracts from an objective approach to the history. I don't question his information as accurate because of this, but at times it left me asking questions. More importantly though, there are several names, dates, locations, events, that go in one ear and out the other. By the end of it I think he goes through a little too much in my opinion. I found myself rushing through the last 10% just to get it finished since the bulk of the interesting history had been covered in my opinion. And the ending isn't exactly a climactic one. Regardless, I recommend it!

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Strausbaugh’s The Wrong Stuff is what happens when someone decides to write military history without first donning a tweed jacket or consulting a footnote. The result is a book that feels like a barroom conversation with a slightly inebriated but well-read friend who happens to know a lot about the less glamorous corners of war. It’s refreshing, irreverent, and occasionally just a little too pleased with its own irreverence.

Strausbaugh approaches the subject with the kind of enthusiasm rarely found in the academic set, which is precisely what makes The Wrong Stuff worth reading. He strips away the sterile language and institutional reverence that so often bog down historical writing, replacing it with grit, irony, and a healthy appreciation for human absurdity. You’ll come away knowing more about the messy, inglorious side of conflict, and you’ll laugh or wince while doing it.

That said, Strausbaugh’s strength is also his weakness. At times, his “realistic” portrayal of military misadventures feels less like a bold correction of the record and more like a gleeful romp through the muck. It’s as if he’s aware that the subject matter gives him license to misbehave a little, and he takes full advantage. The tone occasionally teeters between honest critique and carnival spectacle, but somehow that imbalance adds to the book’s charm.

In the end, The Wrong Stuff succeeds because it refuses to play by the usual rules. It’s vivid, funny, and unfiltered, and while it may lean a little too hard into its own cynicism, it delivers a far more engaging and human account of war than most sober-minded academics ever manage. For readers who prefer their history with a smirk and a stiff drink, Strausbaugh delivers exactly that, no apologies offered, and none needed.