Into the Cosmos

James T. Andrews (Editor) James T. Andrews is professor of modern Russian history at Iowa State University, and director of the Humanities Center. He is the author or editor of four books, including Red Cosmos: K. E. Tsiolkovskii, Grandfather of Soviet Rocketry; Science for the Masses: The Bolshevik State, Public Science, and the Popular Imagination in Soviet Russia, 1917-1934; and Maksim Gor’kii, Science, and Revolution.Asif A. Siddiqi (Editor) Asif A. Siddiqi is professor of history at Fordham University in New York. He writes and teaches on the history of science and technology as well as on modern Russian history. His books include The Red Rockets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857–1957 and the forthcoming Departure Gates: Global Histories of Space on Earth. Siddiqi is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015) and the coeditor of the Studies in the History of Science and Technology series at Johns Hopkins University Press.

USSR spaceflight triumphs between 1957 and 1965 marked the apogee of Soviet civilization. Into the Cosmos provides important new insights into the culture, society, and politics of the Khrushchev era through the lens of the cosmonauts and their record-setting journeys. Chapters in this collection cover topics ranging from secrecy and celebrity to gender and consumerism, illuminating a relatively neglected period in Soviet history. This book should prove equally valuable to scholars of Eastern Europe and to historians of science, technology, and space exploration.