Amazing Stories of the Space Age

by Rod Pyle

Award-winning science writer and documentarian Rod Pyle presents an insider's perspective on the most unusual and bizarre space missions ever devised inside and outside of NASA. The incredible projects described here were not merely flights of fancy dreamed up by space enthusiasts, but actual missions planned by leading aeronautical engineers. Some were designed but not built; others were built but not flown; and a few were flown to failure but little giant rocket that would use atomic bombs as propulsion (never mind the fallout), military bases on the moon that could target enemies on earth with nuclear weapons, a scheme to spray-paint the lenses of Soviet spy satellites in space, the rushed Soyuz 1 spacecraft that ended with the death of its pilot, the near-disaster of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the mysterious Russian space shuttle that flew only once and was then scrapped--these are just some of the unbelievable tales that Pyle has found in once top-secret documents as well as accounts that were simply lost for many decades.These stories, complimented by many rarely-seen photos and illustrations, tell of a time when nothing was too off-the-wall to be taken seriously, and the race to the moon and the threat from the Soviet Union trumped all other considerations. Readers will be fascinated, amused, and sometimes chilled.

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

365 pages, Paperback

First published October 18, 2016

About the author

Rod is the author of 15 nonfiction books (plus three for NASA) on his favorite subject, space exploration and technology. He tracks this fascination back to childhood, when his introversion led him to spend countless hours watching rocket launches, moonwalks and science fiction (which often led to truancy, countenanced by an understanding mother). While his contemporaries revered football players (basketball was not really a "thing" yet), he wanted nothing more than to become an astronaut. He now realizes that breaking into a sweat when it takes the elevator doors a few moments too long to open probably makes him a poor candidate for spaceflight.

While Rod actually attended seven colleges and universities in the search of the perfect major, he ended up getting a BA at the Art Center College of Design in film (because only poetry is less likely to get you a job), and an MA from Stanford University (where the weather is even better).

He lives in Pasadena, CA but dreams of azure seas and tropical shores.

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since humanity started acquiring means to leave the surface of our planet and even graze the tantalizing expanses of space, it has been trying to figure out how exactly to actually do that. And Rod Pyle shows is how that journey went in 22 chapters, each focusing on a project, mission or idea.

Although the title is meant to sound sensational, even pulpy, this book is anything but that. Instead it is a lovely detailed chronicle of the Space Age, of what was and could have been, of plans that worked and plans that failed, of missions well-known and of more obscure projects.

Not surprisingly, a whole bunch of space programs and research ended up rooted in military, in arms race, in the desire to outdo the enemy and get tactical advantage in the new playground - or as some would see, a battlefield - of space. Some of these ideas may seem not just far-fetched but quite absurd, but Pyle does not just present these as amusing anecdotes; he actually explains exactly how they appeared to make sense based on the limits of knowledge and technology — and why many of those were doomed to fail. And so there were ambitious Nazi plans to rocket bomb America, American plans to build military bases on the Moon faster than the Soviets would be able to and defend from Soviet attacks there, the plans for satellite interceptions, military carriers, and space guns. Not to mention plans for rockets propelled by nuclear explosions!

“For example, for liftoff they would have to detonate smaller bombs more frequently—at least one 0.1 kiloton bomb per second. And yes, they were going to do exactly what you are probably thinking—they would launch their atomic monster from Earth. Bang, bang, bang. Sorry, you have cancer—we're on our way to Saturn.”

Many space programs and projects were in various stages of development, some having not even gone beyond theory and some dropped after quite a bit of cash was sunk in them. A few succeeded - some more than others (Apollo program, Mars rovers even if poor Viking-1 got killed by a coding error), a few resulted in spectacular failures and tragedies (Space Shuttle disasters, Komarov’s death in doomed Soyuz-1), and a few were near misses that managed to work (Gemini-8 emergency). And along the way Rod Pyle uses formerly classified information by the military for some of these projects and manages to convey pretty technical information in a very accessible and engaging way, with just enough details to have it make sense but not enough to put you to sleep.

This audiobook became my good companion on work commute for a few weeks, and it was time very well spent.

5 stars.

An interesting interview with Rod Pyle is here: https://www.space.com/35572-amazing-s...

——————

Also posted on my blog.

[Marta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting collection of abandoned space projects. It is a travel back to the mindset of the cold war, a good comparison between the US and Russian space programs, and the influence of German scientists, especially von Braun. I was listening and while I found it interesting, there were a lot of technical details that I tuned out. It is a good audio diversion for people interested in space exploration history, but if you care about the technical details, you are better off with a print version.

[Mary Lins · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Amazing Stories of the Space Age", by Rod Pyle, is a must for any space enthusiast! These 22 stories about historical space ideas, programs, successes, and failures, are written with the layman in mind, but they are not "dumbed down" and Pyle annotates his sources well. There are great photos and schematics to accompany these stories, many of which have just recently been released to the public.

I'm all for anything that gets people interested and excited about space exploration, and this collection of stories surely does just that!

[John Gould]

Rod Pyle has made an important contribution to the narrative of space and spaceflight. I think of myself as being educated when it comes to the lesser-known history of the early space age; but this book presents a TON of new, interesting, and relevant information!
An absolute page turner, each chapter presents a new story, some of which we've heard of, like the X-20 and Nova. However, Pyle's research includes both unclassified and declassified documents with new information about each project, and scanned photographs of some documents are even in the book. Details are definitely not absent. Weights, specific impulses, dimensions, speeds, all included right along with a coherent explanation of each of them. The purpose of each project, how they fit into the narrative of the space age, and what the ended up contributing to the space program are also explained beautifully.
The word "amazing" is used frequently in everyday life, but these stories are *genuinely* amazing. Some of the ideas they were coming up with back in the '50s and '60s that the book explores literally had me shaking my head in amazement. I never realized how many bad ideas there were, and how many good ideas there were that just weren't feasible. Regardless, each idea ultimately contributed somehow to a real flight, like Apollo 11. These proposed projects were in the minds of the people involved at the time, and thanks to Rod, they are back in the narrative again.

[John Capobianco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rod Pyle has created an excellent entry into the space-history canon!

"Amazing Stories of the Space Age" is presented in bite-sized chunks ... more than enough information to hold the interest of the average reader, and lots of recently-unclassified information about programs like the Manned Orbiting Laboratory and the X-20 Dyna-Soar program to capture the interest of hard-core space enthusiasts.

The text is witty, concise, and engaging. For many, this book will provide more than enough information on topics of interest to satisfy curiosity; for others, certain chapters may provide a starting point for deeper research into an area of interest.

As a pilot for a major airline, I find myself not having as much time to read as I would like so this book proved to be a great choice for me. I found myself not wanting to put it down multiple times as I read about topics of interest, and since each chapter is mostly independent from the others there were plenty of sensible spots to pause at the end of a chapter and then resume reading in the next on an entirely new topic. I really appreciate that Pyle understands what it means to put events into their proper historical context -- in order to understand historical events, one must consider those events within the context of the times within which they occurred, and his book sets that stage (primarily a Cold War stage with the threat of full-scale nuclear combat a very real consideration) very well considering its length and breadth. Nicely done!

I rate Rod Pyle's "Amazing Stories of the Space Age" 5 out of 5 stars. :-)

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost stopped reading this in chapter 2 because it was almost too technical. I'm glad I stuck with it because it ended up being pretty enjoyable and I learned a lot about the early space age. Boy, were there some crazy ideas about what to do in space! This book is very technical, so if space science and physics aren't your things, maybe skip this one. In the end, reading this was time well-spent.

[Cav · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Amazing Stories of the Space Age is about the most mysterious and intriguing episodes of the history of space exploration—its undercover projects, grandiose dreams, odd spinoffs, and muffled dramas..."

I enjoyed Amazing Stories of the Space Age; for the most part. It was a decent look into the topic.

Author Rod Pyle is an American writer, journalist, public speaker, and former television producer and educator who concentrates on subjects regarding spaceflight.

Rod Pyle :


Pyle has a good writing style that I found to be fairly engaging. He covers the material here in a straightforward, no-frills manner that I felt worked.

As the book's title hints at, the writing here examines many different episodes - some classified, others not - from the space race. Both Russian and American technologies are discussed.

The contents of the book proper covers:
• Nazis in Space: Project Silverbird
• Red Moon: Countering the Communist Threat on Earth and in Space
• Das Marsprojekt: Red Planet Armada
• Project Orion: We Come in Peace (With Nuclear Bombs!)
• LUNEX: Earth in the Crosshairs
• The Wheel: An Inflatable Space Station
• Venusian Empire: NASA's Mars/Venus Flyby Adventure
• Blue Gemini: Weaponizing Orbit
• Flirting with Death: The Terrifying Flight of Gemini 8
• Manned Orbiting Laboratory: How to Design, Test, and Never Fly a Space Program
• Apollo 11: Danger on the Moon
• The First Space Shuttle: Project Dyna-Soar
• Beyond the Edge of Space: The X-15B
• The Sad, Strange Tale of Soyuz 1
• The Turtlenauts
• Falling to Earth: The Dangerous Science of Reentry
• Funeral for a Viking: The End of Viking 1
• Saving Skylab: Cowboys in Space
• Near Misses: Danger Stalks the Space Shuttle
• Showdown in Space: Firearms on the Moon
• Buran: The Soviet Union's One-Flight Wonder
• Major Matt Mason: A Man for the New Space Age

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

While this was a very well-researched book, it was not really the gripping page-turner I hoped for...
I am very picky about how readable my books are, so I have to take a few stars off. Your mileage may vary, however, so don't let my review dissuade you from reading this one.
3 stars.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book I wanted to like, and parts of it are good. Many of his stories were already familiar; those I just skimmed. Ultimately, I wasn't learning enough to be worth my while to continue. Oh, well. For me, 2.5 stars for what I read: about 2/3 of it. Back it goes! Your mileage may vary.

[BellaGBear · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really an awesome book for everyone who loves the space, and who would like to know more about the lesser-known events regarding explorations into space. However, for someone like me who knows little about engines and the technology behind spacecraft, many chapters were out of my league. Still there were enough chapters which did interest me to make this book worthwhile to at least glance through, to read the parts that capture your fancy

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pyle digs through the archives of space programs to discover the weird and wild world of the space age, from Nazi plans for suborbital bombers to the Air Force's orbiting spy cameras. Pyle does an excellent job detailing the stories in ways that both the lay reader and space fanatics can understand and enjoy.

**I received an ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss. All opinions are my own.**

[V.L. Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear your schedule because this book is impossible to put down once you start reading it! Not only are the passages presented in a deeply, engrossing manner--but the depth of research by the author is astounding. I read another book by Rod Pyle, and I've been hooked ever since...and Amazing Stores of the Space Age is a quality book that you will enjoy from beginning to end.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brimming over with little known facts about our exploration of space.

[Phillip Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is mostly about the race between the US and the USSR to dominate in space exploration that led to new innovations that were the result of hard lessons. The rocket scientist Werner Von Braun's vision for the space age were grandiose dreams of immense space stations and the colonization of Mars run by the military. As time went by they learned that these goals were limited by budget constraints, realities of space travel, and an unwillingness to put nuclear weapons in space. The competition between the superpowers to outdo each other in space exploration led to tragedies and failures but also corrections that made later missions more successful. What the book needed was more of the Soviet perspective on the space race story.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an entertaining but not mind-blowing book. There were a fair number of stories in here that I already knew about, at least to some extent, like the nuclear bomb propelled Orion or the fatal Soyuz 1 mission. There were others that were new, especially the stuff that had been classified by the military. There's a number of different Air Force projects discussed here for militarizing space. Of course, these generally come from the 50s and 60s and never got off the drawing board, but stuff like military moonbases, space stations, and guns for space warfare make cool what-ifs. I think I enjoyed the stuff about the Soviet space program the most, because there was some pretty entertaining and goofy ideas, such as a mission to send some turtles and other animals around the moon and back to Earth. This definitely makes me want to seek out a good history of the Soviet space program, because I'm sure there's even more fascinating stories and ideas there I don't know about. My big complaint with this book is that the writing often felt a bit dry. I was expecting a more humorous or engaging tone, and instead things are often fairly straightforward. There's a bit of imagining what could've been in the cases of projects that never got past the planning stages, but in general it felt a bit too much like reading a more approachable series of Wikipedia articles. Still, I may check out some of Pyle's other books at some point because they sound interesting, and this certainly has made me want to read more about the history of the Space Race.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Amazing Stories of the Space Age" reads like a non-fiction short story collection: a diverse gathering of stories that range from practical to outrageous, somber to vivacious, and informative to all-around good fun. Rod Pyle does a great job of communicating the many realities of spaceflight: adventure, exploration, science, engineering, creativity, and, of course, danger and lack of funding. Through these tales set from the speculative pre-WWII years to the present, it was interesting to see how perceptions of spaceflight had changed over the years, from the military interests of the Cold War, to the (absurd but practical) applications of the Nuclear Age to spaceflight, as well as modern re-usability challenges of the Space Shuttle. One downside to this collection, as with most short story collections, is that some stories are more memorable than others.

As someone with many romantic conceptions of spaceflight, I liked that the breadth of experiences I read about provided me with a much more realistic view of the challenges but has also taught me about the variety of solutions there are to spaceflight, many of which are little explored: we've learned so much and yet know so little! Curious and inspired, I'm awaiting the next amazing stories of the Space Age with open arms.

[Barry Haworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was on my Christmas wish list, and I found it to be a fascinating read. The book is a collection of stories and information pieces from the earliest days of the space age (the Nazi plans for a hyper sonic suborbital bomber) to the 1980s (the Soviet Buran). There are a mix of things that were planned and never built, such as military plans for moon bases, things that were developed but never flew (such as the US Manned Orbital Laboratory) and details of missions of particular interest, such as the Gemini 8 emergency and the Soyuz 1 tragedy.

Being a space enthusiast there was a lot of stuff that I knew already, but also a whole lot more that I didn't. Some of these were just obscure, like the 1959 Project Horizon plan for a military moon base, or had a lot of recently declassified content, such as the real purpose for the Manned Orbital Laboratory. This book would probably be of most interest to a space enthusiast, but is well written and would be very informative to someone who is not already familiar with space history.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very entertaining book for anyone interested in the history of space exploration. This book focuses on the 'projects that might have been'. Though there are sections on well know efforts like Apollo, and the space shuttle. The book spends most of it's time on projects that were abandon for various reasons, before completion. Such projects as the Russian space shuttle (only flew once), and the early 1960s plan to fly men past both Venus, and mars in one big loop.
The book covers both the projects, the people that were involved, and the politics/economics that led to their cancellation.
Because of the broad topics the author covers, some may be put of by the lack of focus in this writing. It did not bother me at all in this case. I was not expecting a detailed reflection on projects gone wrong, but rather expected a light overview of the twists and turns that space exploration has taken. For this, I found the book entertaining, and informative.

[Mathieu Gaudreault · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrefic book. There many chapters about aborted space projects like the X20(an ealry space plane). Some story are sad like the one of cosmonaut Validimir Komarov. Komarov knew and warned the soviet space program that the Soyouz space craft was flawed and had many defects. He somehow flew it but tragically died when his parachutes weren,t able to deploy. the soviet were reckless but somehow a lunar flybay was too risky for them in 1968(there a interesting chapter about the soviet moon flyby projects).

There funy one like the US air Force proposal and study for space pistols! There the missed opportunities like the nuclear propulsion space ships that could have opened deep space to human kind on the cheap like the Orion project.

Overall a funny book that we learn the less known aspects of space endeavour. Also there author explain in a way the average Joe and Jane can undersand how those crafts would or wouldn't have flown.

[jazz weisman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this was a lot of fun! Somehow I listened to it in two days, which is a bit surprising... Overall a great anthology of crazy stories from across the space age, and I'll definitely come back to it again. I really enjoyed the large time period spanned by the book (basically the whole of human spaceflight), and the level of research and detail that it went into for each chapter. Each chapter is a well researched article about some aspect or project from the age of human spaceflight, from the beginning to now, and it covers everything from obscure projects that never flew to the most famous Apollo and Gemini programs. Could have gone into even more technical detail for my tastes but I thought it did a better job than most general audience books.

[Giuliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely well researched book. You get enough information about each mission or mission design without being overloaded with information. For some reason I was expecting more 'wacky' ideas to be presented in the book and while admittedly some of the concepts were pretty out there, it wasn't as 'star warsy' as I thought.
Still, the book is well written and caters for both the expert and the novice. Will certainly check out Rob Pyle's other books.

[Are · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars was because of the few times I could feel my attention wandering when the info got a little too technical for my interest. Overall a very interesting and entertaining book; I especially loved the nuclear assault rifles for troops on the moon base, the nuclear explosion propelled rocket and the plastic re-entry bag for the astronauts in case the space shuttle broke down in orbit.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book on some of the little known facts of the space race. It is broken down by year and the project involved. It starts off with the German AMERIKA bomber from the end of WWII that Germany was designing to bomb the East Coast.

I found it fascinating and interesting to read.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of fun. Some of the stories are well-known, but quite a few were declassified fairly recently; others, like Gemini and the ill fated Soyuz 1 mission are just harrowing and/or sad. Once again, Chief Designer Korelev makes you want to reach through the pages and hug him. Talk about Space Dad.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a life long space fan i knew the majority of the scrapped plans mentioned in here. Basically the cold war needed to last longer to give NASA an actual budget. There were some amazing plans on paper to explore Mars and farther out that i so wish happened.

[Kim]

I am excited and honoured to be a Goodreads winner.

[Jerry Jobe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and researched, this book is a good read if you are interested in the history of space exploration.

[Daniel Cornwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well told and well researched. Last quarter of the book is notes. My only quibble is that the photos in the last chapter should have been spread throughout the book.

[Eric Sullenberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall good book. There are some stories I was unfamiliar with and others that probably only the most Die hard of space fans know. This book is a series of short stories about true things researched as best as possible through declassified materials and the model web of history and space race disinformation. The story seem to have been written independent of one another and then put roughly into chronological order with loose connections between them. Unfortunately that leads to a flaw that is common in this type of book, which is poor editing revealed in repetition. When editing and the stories are being considered independent of one another the narrative seems fine. However, within the context of a continuous story many of the little stories have very repetitious parts. These aren't just call backs to other chapters, but flat out repeats. Since much of the story is intertwined it's understandable to not know which place to plug that information into, but having it in more than one location and occurring multiple times is annoying.

This review was written using speech to text dictation so errors May abound as it has not been frou fruit.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping this would be more like James Mahaffey's Atomic Accidents or https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32191825-atomic-adventures Atomic Adventures - a collection of interesting anecdotes about early space travel, but this actually turned out to be a somewhat straightforward and mostly chronological history of human efforts in space, told through the lens of a few specific projects.

It wasn't bad per se, but I knew a good deal of the information from other sources anyway, and the stuff I did find interesting and rare (like the discussions of some of the early speculative space station designs) were padded out with a lot more of what I would consider quotidian stories.

3 of 5 stars

[Patrick DiJusto · Rating 3 out of 5]

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