Colin Turbett - Soviets in Space: The People of the USSR and the Race to the Moon

Soviets in Space

The People of the USSR and the Race to the Moon

Colin Turbett

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

Pen & Sword History

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire Philadelphia

Copyright Colin Turbett 2021

ISBN 978 1 39900 486 2

eISBN 978 1 39900 487 9

The right of Colin Turbett to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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This book is dedicated to three Valentinas who represent the best of the Soviet Union during the years of the space race:

Valentina Pomarova who should have made it into space

Valentina Gagarin the main support of the first one to do so

Valentina Tereshkova a textile worker who dreamed of driving trains but ended up doing what no woman had ever done

A s with my two previous Pen & Sword-published books on the history of the USSR, the compilation of material has involved lots of collaboration and effort by others. I am again grateful to Valentina Kudinova from Kharkov, Ukraine, for her research and translations. On this occasion, she enlisted the enthusiastic help of Galina Zheleznyak, Director of the Yuri Gagarin Planetarium and Museum in Kharkov, and I am very grateful to her for photographs and information. Natalia Yurievna McAllister, a neighbour who originates from Chelyabinsk, Western Siberia, also provided very useful assistance and insight she is also patiently teaching me Russian. Others who helped are former Morning Star journalist, Ken Ferguson (now editor of Scottish Socialist Voice ), and . In some cases, permission has been impossible to obtain and if issues arise from this, the author should be contacted via the publisher so that the matter can be properly resolved.

The author.

Natalia McAllister.

Valentina Kudinova (right) and Galina Zheleznyak (left), Kharkov Planetarium, flanked by Gagarin and Korolev.

Abbreviations

BAM	BaikalAmur Railway
CIA	Central Intelligence Agency
CPSU	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
DOSAAF	Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation, and Navy
GIRD	Group for the Study of Reactive Motion
GNP	gross national product