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

I was in 9th grade for Vanguard and Explorer, but I would later come to work on Gemini and Apollo as an engineer at Kennedy. I remember studying the IGY in school. This book does a great job of bring the fascinating history of the beginning of the space race alive, and I hated to put it down. There are a few factual/historical errors and typos, but nothing that seriously detracts from the content. I really enjoyed the book, and learned quite a bit of new information. All in all, a very good read with fewer errors than I notice in most space histories.

It has been a half century now since the United States government made its initial commitment to the space program. As a result of our involvement in space the lives of average Americans have been changed considerably over the past five decades. Fantastic new technologies that were simply unimaginable 50 years ago are now a part of our everyday lives. And people are living longer, healthier lives as a result of the medical advances spawned by the space race. To try to help put all of this in some kind of perspective Michael D'Antonio has come up with a terrific new book. Like an episode of the popular old TV series "Time Tunnel", "A Ball, A Dog, And A Monkey" carries us back to the year 1957 when it all began. It proves to be an fascinating and eye opening journey. In "A Ball, A Dog, And A Monkey: 1957 - The Space Race Begins" Michael D'Antonio introduces us to many of the major players who were there at the very beginning of this fantastic voyage. Perhaps no one is more interesting or more controversial than one Wehrner von Braun. As a young boy growing up in Prussia, von Braun was obsessed with the notion of space travel. And as a young man, von Braun would become one of Nazi Germany's premier rocket experts. At the conclusion of World War II the United States recruited von Braun and a number of other German scientists to aid in the development of the U.S. space program. In addition, we also meet key people like James Van Allen, General J. Bruce Medaris and presidential advisor Herbert York who all made significant contributions to the cause in the earliest days of the space race. There is also quite a bit of information of the politics of outer space. You will learn who stepped up to support space exploration and who was skeptical. It was also a lot of fun to discover how veteran NBC news space corresepondant Jay Barbree came to be involved in covering the space program. As an upstart young reporter he was there at the very beginning and as far as I know is still covering the space program for NBC News to this day! D'Antonio also reveals what life was like for those who worked at Cape Canaveral in those early years. Many hardships were endured by those pioneering souls who toiled at the Cape back then and the families of these people had to make numerous sacrifices as well. We should all be very grateful! Finally, I was stunned to discover that the first satellite launched into space by the United States was a ball weighing just four pounds! Can you believe it? "A Ball, A Dog, And A Monkey: 1957 - The Space Race Begins" grabbed my attention immediately and held it to the very end. Michael D'Antonio is a gifted writer who gives an honest assessment of just what was going on in this nation some fifty years ago. One of the more interesting books I have read in 2007. Highly recommended!

So now it had begun. The conquest of space, for which the prophets, Tsiolkovskij, Oberth, von Braun, Clarke, Gatland, Ley, Gartmann, Burgess and others had argued so long and so eloquently. Of course it was slightly disturbing that the Soviets were the first, after all, we had been waiting for Vanguard for a couple of years now. Floods of words have inundated the sea of printed pages since then. One might wonder what new there would be to be found in yet another book on the beginning of the Space Race. Well, for anyone who lived through those years,it's nice to remember, and to partake of the reflections of others on those times. For those, the majority of readers, to whom all this is ancient history, it will be an illumination of the sentiments of a bygone age. It was really an quaint and different age, with different values, most of which we, tankfully, have left behind, an age that should stay bygone, and good riddance. Mr D'Antonio presents the actual events, as they happened, well, most of that is to be found elsewhere. Much of the reminiscenses also have been published before. So what then? There is, of course the possibility of aquiring all those books and articles, if you have the inclination, the means to do so - and the shelf room to accomodate it all. Here you have a representative digest of all that stuff, spiced with interwiews by the author, not to be found elsewhere, in all comprising a synthesis you won't find anywhere else. Interspaced with the luminaries and main actors of the drama we meet those so-called "ordinary" - more often than not not-so-ordinary - people, whose lifes were touched by all the strange things going on. Sadly, we miss those stories that are still awaiting to be uncovered on the Soviet side, and the general world-picture is typically North American bipolar: US and "them others", i.e. people living beyond the sea. Still, it's a good read, you can feel the suspence, the dissappointment and the feeling of triumph, even though your own memories, or the history books, have given away the punch-lines of the story. I had to pause for sleep but got myself a scalding for bringing the book to table. It was all worth it.

The early history of the space race will probably seem a bit alien and strange for younger persons who know or remember only NASA's failures (amid some continuing triumphs). For anyone old enough to remember staring with wonder at Sputnik as it crossed the sky over their front yard shortly after October 4, 1957 (I was eleven years old and as it turns out, what we saw was its booster rocket behind the actual satellite), this book brings out the political and bureaucratic infighting in the U.S. military that occurred at the time, as well as the story of the Soviet engineers who pulled off the feat and who were carefully hidden from public view. This book is clearly written and is close to being a page turner. It combines narratives based on interviews with those who were involved in everything from getting U.S. rockets off the ground to those who scrambled to provide housing for those first coming to Cape Canaveral, with straight historical analysis and description of the era and just enough detail. Highly recommended whether you are old enough to remember Sputnik and want an account of what was going on you DIDN'T know about, or are younger and want a readable account of the early era of the "space race".