Books like First Men to the Moon by Wernher von Braun

Penny‑tight businessman Bedford teams with absent‑minded scientist Cavor, who has cracked a gravity‑blocking material, to launch a daring voyage to the Moon—only to encounter a hostile, alien world beyond their expectations.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s when the West was stunned by the space accomplishments of the Soviet Union, the identity of their "Chief Designer" was a state secret in keeping with the tradition of Russian national secrecy. It was not until his death at age 59 that the name of Sergei Korolev was revealed to the world for posthumous honor by his government. Through interviews with family members and former colleagues, Harford, executive director-emeritus, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, reveals the complex, driven personality of a man who, despite unjust imprisonment in the Gulag, toiled tirelessly for the Soviet military industrial complex. Harford clearly demonstrates that Korolev was literally the indispensable man behind the Soviet space program whose untimely death hobbled the Soviet effort to land men on the moon. More than just a biography, this is also history of the Soviet space program at the height of the Cold War