Soviet and Russian Space Programs
The Family He Left Behind
Fifty years ago, Yuri Gagarin left earth. When he came back, everything changed.
May 2011 |
By Allen Abel
How Things Work: Soyuz-Station Docking
In orbit, it’s all about connections.
March 2011 |
By Michael Klesius
Star City at 50
Change comes to the place where spaceflight was born.
March 2011 |
By Michael Cassutt
Exit Strategy
NASA’s new launch abort system just passed a major test. But what booster and capsule will use it?
May 06, 2010 |
By Michael Klesius
Soviet Star Wars
The launch that saved the world from orbiting laser battle stations.
January 2010 |
By Dwayne A. Day and Robert G. Kennedy III
Mission to Mir
At the start of a new partnership, U.S. and Russian space travelers learn that every long journey begins with a single step.
October 2008 |
By Tom Harpole
Mission Possible
A new probe to a Martian moon may win back respect for Russia’s unmanned space program.
September 2008 |
By Anatoly Zak
Rough Ride Home
Three space station astronauts are glad to be back on terra firma after an off-course landing in a Russian Soyuz capsule.
April 2008 |
By Michael Klesius
The Man Behind the Curtain
Space czar Sergei Korolev won fame for the launch of Sputnik, but a more modest genius deserves the credit.
November 2007 |
By Asif Siddiqi
Laika's Tale
Fifty years after her flight, a new graphic novel recounts the saga of the dog that made space history.
November 01, 2007 |
By Tony Reichhardt
We Shocked the World
Nikita Khrushchev's son recalls the night Sputnik made history.
August 2007 |
By Sergei Khrushchev (Translated by Lyudmila Khomenko Chillico)
Russia's Long Love Affair with Space
It started with Utopian dreams and rocketeers.
August 2007 |
By Asif Siddiqi
It All Started with Sputnik
An eminent space historian looks back on the first 50 years of space exploration.
July 2007 |
By Roger D. Launius
Shuttle Stop
The tensest moment in spaceflight: Docking with a 100-ton space station while orbiting Earth at five miles per second.
May 2006 |
By Thomas D. Jones
The Nightmare of Voskhod 2
A cosmonaut remembers the exhilaration-and terror-of his first space mission.
January 2005 |
By Alexei Leonov
The First 1,000 Days
Ghost alarms, foul odors, and a tourist season? Life aboard the International Space Station.
July 2004 |
By Thomas D. Jones
The Other Moon Landings
The Soviets lost the moon race but won a dram of glory with the first robotic craft to roam another world.
March 2004 |
By Andrew Chaikin
Growing Pains
It's the one area of space science in which you get to eat the experiment.
September 2003 |
By Robert Zimmerman
The Rest of the Rocket Scientists
Some went west. This is the story of the ones who went east.
September 2003 |
By Anatoly Zak
