Russian Planetary Exploration: History, Development, Legacy and Prospects

by Brian Harvey

Illustrated with photographs from Soviet Venus and Mars probes, images of spacecraft, diagrams of flight paths and maps of landing sites, this book draws on published scientific papers, archives, memoirs and other material. The text reviews Soviet engineering techniques and science packages, as well the difficulties which ruined several missions. The program’s scientific and engineering legacy is also addressed, within the Soviet space effort as a whole.

Genres: Space, Science

376 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Tanwen Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a treasure trove of information about the Russian Planetary Exploration. Due to Soviet era secrecy, the Russian side of planetary exploration has often gone unreported. However, Harvey does a fantastic job of rectifying that and piecing together the complicated story of Russian planetary exploration.

While in content terms the book is magnificent, it does fall down on the writing side of things. The book is dense, filled with jargon and unfamiliar (to Western eyes at least) names making it very hard to follow what's going on.

A brilliant book if you want to find out more about the Russian space programme, but a bit of a slog to get through.

[Nikky Southerland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soviet space history is the coolest.