J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 109, 6, 1999, p.346

Countdown: A History of Spaceflight

by T. A. Heppenheimer

John Wiley & Sons, 1997. ISBN 0-471-14439-8 (hbk), 0-471-29105-6 (pbk). Pp x + 398. £13.99 (pbk).

reviewed by Nick James

With the recent thirtieth anniversary of the first Apollo Moon landing fresh in our minds it is good to see a well written book which looks back at the American and Soviet space programmes. The collapse of Communism in 1991 means that authors can now explore the history of the Soviet programme in almost as much detail as the American one and Heppenheimer fully exploits these new sources of information.

Countdown is a fascinating book which contains much insight into the real reasons behind decisions taken on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The space programme was, of course, much more about Cold War politics and hi-tech engineering than it ever was about science. Even today, in the single superpower era of the so-called New World Order, most space expenditure is directed towards political ends. One of the strengths of Countdown is its concentration on the personal histories of the key players on both sides and how they were affected by the larger geo-political forces of the times. Famous characters such as Von Braun and Korolev are there but so too are many engineers and managers lower down the hierarchy. Each chapter is an easy, compelling read and the story fits together well.

Heppenheimer tries to be even-handed but he does betray his origins in several places. If this book has one failing it is the rather annoying suggestion that 'foreigners' can only compete with Americans if they are highly subsidised by their respective governments. At one point he states that the British and French operated 'their aircraft industries as arms of the state and covered their losses with subsidies'. Quite what the difference is between direct subsidy of European firms and the huge cross-subsidy that Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and the like reap from NASA and USAF contracts is not made clear. In general the treatment of European programmes is rather weak. It is really only Ariane that gets a mention and then only with a bitchy comment about 'subsidised development' winning out against good old American knowhow.

Despite its occasional shortcomings the book is a very good read and has a very extensive index and bibliography. I would certainly recommend it to anyone interested in discovering how the superpowers' space programs evolved into the state that we see today.


Nick James is the papers secretary of the BAA. He works in the electronics industry and is currently developing a high performance spacecraft tracking and communications system for the European Space Agency.

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