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    A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957---The Space Race Begins
    A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957---The Space Race Begins
    A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957---The Space Race Begins
    Audiobook10 hours

    A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957---The Space Race Begins

    Written by Michael D'Antonio

    Narrated by Alan Sklar

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    About this audiobook

    Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael D'Antonio captures the wackiness of the first year of the space race as the Americans scrambled desperately to match the Soviets and President Eisenhower intervened to guarantee that the space program would not be run by the military.

    On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite into orbit around the earth. Little more than a month later, the Soviets launched Sputnik II. News of Sputnik created panic in Washington, D.C., and throughout the United States. Within days, the U.S. military began a madcap race to space full of crashes, skullduggery, and backstabbing until Eisenhower's secret civilian program surpassed the Soviets by putting the first American-a hero monkey named Gordo-into orbit.

    D'Antonio draws on archives, film footage, and interviews with many of the scientists, reporters, and others who were involved in the first year of the space race. He recounts the early days of the space race with all the zaniness and urgency of the time, just in time for fiftieth anniversary commemorations.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 2, 2007
    ISBN9781400175031
    Author

    Michael D'Antonio

    Michael D’Antonio is the author of many acclaimed books, including Atomic Harvest, Fall from Grace, Tin Cup Dreams, Mosquito, and The State Boys Rebellion. His work has also appeared in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Discover, and many other publications. Among his many awards is the Pulitzer Prize, which he shared with a team of reporters for New York Newsday.

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    • 5/5
      I needed books about monkeys for my year of the monkey reading challenge. I love history, I love space exploration and science fiction, and I love reading about how animals provided us with the technology we have today, because I feel it honors them after all of the cruel things that were done to them in an age before animal rights were even thought of. For all of those reasons I picked up this book and as someone who reads a lot of non fiction, I can say this book was very well written.I found it very informative, but not at all in the dry way that most expect a book on the history of science would be. It wasn't a text book of dry facts, but the history of space exploration and the race between the US and Russia to advance their technology and blast into the future of space travel. It portrayed events from both sides of the race, which brought more of the history to life for me than a more one sided telling would have.I would say that fans of space exploration and science fiction will love reading and learning from this book as much as lovers of history and technological development will. I could not be happier that I found this treasure hidden away in the non fiction section of my library.