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Kosmos
The Greatest Adventure: A History of Human Space Exploration
The Greatest Adventure explores the past, present, and future of the space race.
The space race was perhaps the greatest technological contest of the twentieth century. It was a thrilling era of innovation, discovery, and exploration, as astronauts and cosmonauts were launched on space missions of increasing length, complexity, and danger. The Greatest Adventure traces the events of this extraordinary period, describing the initial string of Soviet achievements: the first satellite in orbit; the first animal, man, and woman in space; the first spacewalk; as well as the ultimate US victory in the race to land on the moon. The book then takes the reader on a journey through the following decades of space exploration to the present time, detailing the many successes, tragedies, risks, and rewards of space exploration.
The space race was perhaps the greatest technological contest of the twentieth century. It was a thrilling era of innovation, discovery, and exploration, as astronauts and cosmonauts were launched on space missions of increasing length, complexity, and danger. The Greatest Adventure traces the events of this extraordinary period, describing the initial string of Soviet achievements: the first satellite in orbit; the first animal, man, and woman in space; the first spacewalk; as well as the ultimate US victory in the race to land on the moon. The book then takes the reader on a journey through the following decades of space exploration to the present time, detailing the many successes, tragedies, risks, and rewards of space exploration.
- GenresHistoryScienceTechnology
368 pages, Hardcover
First published September 6, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 24, 2021
The history of our space exploration has involved a very small number of people going into space at huge cost and at the loss of a good number of lives - yet it is something that remains of interest to many, and seems to fit well with the human urge to explore new frontiers. Even trivial excursions like Richard Branson's quick skip to 100 kilometres makes big news. There has been some backlash about show-off billionaires (and it's true of some), but this misses the bigger point of the advances being made in our ability to explore the solar system. In The Greatest Adventure, Colin Burgess sets out to give us a detailed history of the space race and our space-going achievements so far.
I would say that Burgess largely succeeds with one big hole. Let's get that out of the way first. Over the last decade or so, the nature of the space business has transformed hugely. US manned space vehicles have always been commercially built, but were government funded, planned and controlled. Now, with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin providing the whole package far cheaper than NASA ever managed, there is vastly more opportunity for human space exploration. I'm not talking little hops to the limit of the atmosphere, but proper space flight. Burgess only covers this in an epilogue. SpaceX, for example, is mentioned on five pages out of more than 350, a similar number to the Russian canine cosmonaut Stelka (one of the pair first returned living to Earth). I appreciate this book is a history, but SpaceX and others have already achieved remarkable things and practically ignoring their significance seems to really underplay the importance of this new force in human space exploration.
That apart, though, Burgess gives us plenty of detail on both US and Soviet/Russian space efforts (China, like SpaceX, only gets five pages). This is strongly focussed on the period up to and including the Space Shuttle, but that's hardly surprising, I suppose, given the relative lack of meaningful manned missions in most of the period since. Sometimes, if anything, there's too much detail, mentioning lots of individual missions that really didn't add much to the big picture, where it might have been better to tell significant more detailed stories on handful. This means that the book can feel a touch stodgy to read.
The Greatest Adventure will certainly be of interest to the human space exploration enthusiast, but it's less likely to capture the imagination of someone with a general interest in science or space who wants to enjoy this real life adventure story.
I would say that Burgess largely succeeds with one big hole. Let's get that out of the way first. Over the last decade or so, the nature of the space business has transformed hugely. US manned space vehicles have always been commercially built, but were government funded, planned and controlled. Now, with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin providing the whole package far cheaper than NASA ever managed, there is vastly more opportunity for human space exploration. I'm not talking little hops to the limit of the atmosphere, but proper space flight. Burgess only covers this in an epilogue. SpaceX, for example, is mentioned on five pages out of more than 350, a similar number to the Russian canine cosmonaut Stelka (one of the pair first returned living to Earth). I appreciate this book is a history, but SpaceX and others have already achieved remarkable things and practically ignoring their significance seems to really underplay the importance of this new force in human space exploration.
That apart, though, Burgess gives us plenty of detail on both US and Soviet/Russian space efforts (China, like SpaceX, only gets five pages). This is strongly focussed on the period up to and including the Space Shuttle, but that's hardly surprising, I suppose, given the relative lack of meaningful manned missions in most of the period since. Sometimes, if anything, there's too much detail, mentioning lots of individual missions that really didn't add much to the big picture, where it might have been better to tell significant more detailed stories on handful. This means that the book can feel a touch stodgy to read.
The Greatest Adventure will certainly be of interest to the human space exploration enthusiast, but it's less likely to capture the imagination of someone with a general interest in science or space who wants to enjoy this real life adventure story.
December 29, 2021
Disappointing. Despite the title there is remarkably little about the human side of space exploration beyond a potted history of who went where and when. Full review on the blog: http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/20...
November 4, 2022
When I was going through basic training everyone was in love with a girl called Andrews (I never learnt her first name). In the closed environment of buzz cuts, shaving rashes and, frankly, sweaty pits, she was a shining light. Yeah, there were only two other girls on the course, and yeah, the other two had biceps the size of pumpkins, but Andrews was proper beautiful. She had long hair.
However, once you leave basic, you realise Andrews was, at best, medium alright. She ate cheese and onion crisps, didn't brush her teeth and did press-ups on HER FISTS. But, at the time, I thought she was a thinner version of Keira Knightley.
This book is the same.
It's absolutely the best non-fiction space book about the history of human space flight available. It's written by an Ozzie who nicely balances the stories of the Americans and of the Russians. But, at the same time, it's a non-fiction book about space. You read this on the train into London, no one is going to talk to you. Instead they're gonna ask if the BO smell is you.
Great book, but you've gotta be in the mood to learn about human space adventure. Not helped by the fact that, for me, the main highlight was the Love Island chapter where ma man Colin (the author) talked about how the first woman in space got with another cosmonaught.
*Scottish accent* Last night, on...the international space station...
However, once you leave basic, you realise Andrews was, at best, medium alright. She ate cheese and onion crisps, didn't brush her teeth and did press-ups on HER FISTS. But, at the time, I thought she was a thinner version of Keira Knightley.
This book is the same.
It's absolutely the best non-fiction space book about the history of human space flight available. It's written by an Ozzie who nicely balances the stories of the Americans and of the Russians. But, at the same time, it's a non-fiction book about space. You read this on the train into London, no one is going to talk to you. Instead they're gonna ask if the BO smell is you.
Great book, but you've gotta be in the mood to learn about human space adventure. Not helped by the fact that, for me, the main highlight was the Love Island chapter where ma man Colin (the author) talked about how the first woman in space got with another cosmonaught.
*Scottish accent* Last night, on...the international space station...
January 11, 2022
I bought this book after reading a glowing review, but in the end I was disappointed. The early part of the story is well-told, but there is too much irrelevant detail (times to the nearest minute and distances to the nearest converted foot) and not enough overview. There are plenty of photographs of smiling astronaut and cosmonaut crews but not a single diagram of a spacecraft. Apollo’s lunar explorations are described without even any simple maps of the moon. There are plenty of books of colour images: they were not needed; but it is more difficult to convey how the lunar missions worked solely in words without any proper illustration – how, for example, the Apollo 13 crew successfully used the lunar module as a lifeboat to get back to Earth. We get to know little of how the International Space Station supports the crew: there is only passing reference to how oxygen is provided.
There are other annoyances, which better editing would have removed. The phrase “the ferocious heat of re-entry” appears on page 266 and then again on 270. As we are then well into the book, neither is necessary. But later, on page 315, the “engines roared into lusty life”, a tired metaphor by then.
The later exploits of the billionaires currently vying with one another to spend their money giving other people with too much money a few minutes of weightlessness are dealt with descriptively but not analytically.
If you want to know exactly who (or which animal) travelled into space when and for how long, this book will provide the details. I learned a lot about the Soviet space programme, which has largely been ignored. Otherwise, the depth of apparent detail obscures the book’s superficiality.
There are other annoyances, which better editing would have removed. The phrase “the ferocious heat of re-entry” appears on page 266 and then again on 270. As we are then well into the book, neither is necessary. But later, on page 315, the “engines roared into lusty life”, a tired metaphor by then.
The later exploits of the billionaires currently vying with one another to spend their money giving other people with too much money a few minutes of weightlessness are dealt with descriptively but not analytically.
If you want to know exactly who (or which animal) travelled into space when and for how long, this book will provide the details. I learned a lot about the Soviet space programme, which has largely been ignored. Otherwise, the depth of apparent detail obscures the book’s superficiality.
April 19, 2024
Although Burgess's panache-less telling threatens to reduce the history of spaceflight to one damn thing after another, ultimately this is valuable as a comprehensive summary of unbelievable technological achievement and the setbacks along the way. Burgess painstakingly recounts each flight of the early space programs in the USSR and USA, detailing participants, launch details, mission goals, etc. in a dry but clear manner. This attention to detail carries through the race for the moon and early shuttle days, shading off to higher-level summaries as it nears the recent past. A great stylist Burgess is not, but I came to (almost) enjoy the formulaic recitations he gives. It's like reading Homer if he were a technical writer.
As good as this is as a compendium of facts, Burgess never stops to train a critical eye on his subject. There's little effort to situate the space race in a larger social or political context, nor to explain why we should value such exploration. He's not really telling a story, and any shape to the thing is only an emergent property of its chronological plodding. There are tantalizing glimpses hidden in the anecdotes, but Burgess does little to examine the personalities of the players involved. I would recommend this as an overview to get the lay of the land, but readers interested in the drama of or the philosophy undergirding space exploration will need to search on for other sources.
As good as this is as a compendium of facts, Burgess never stops to train a critical eye on his subject. There's little effort to situate the space race in a larger social or political context, nor to explain why we should value such exploration. He's not really telling a story, and any shape to the thing is only an emergent property of its chronological plodding. There are tantalizing glimpses hidden in the anecdotes, but Burgess does little to examine the personalities of the players involved. I would recommend this as an overview to get the lay of the land, but readers interested in the drama of or the philosophy undergirding space exploration will need to search on for other sources.
December 23, 2024
Fact-heavy account of the history of Human space exploration, with a strong emphasis on the 1960s. Author Colin Burgess uses the various space projects as a framework, examining the political and technical challenges that shaped each program in turn. He goes into particular detail into the American Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, and the Soviet Vostok, Soyuz, and Salyut programs. Burgess carefully balances the personal details of the men and women who flew in space- and who made those flights possible-, with the technical information needed to explain how this complex and dangerous endeavor unfolded. I would argue, however, that the decades after 1990 are given a little short shrift. The Space Shuttle, Mir, and the International Space Station Project receive adequate coverage, but the Chinese Human spaceflight program merits only a few pages and there is very little on corporate programs or the space programs of Europe, Japan, India, or other countries. Although the book is intended to be about Human spaceflight, a little more on robotic exploration would have been nice. Burgess does a good job of laying out the facts, but does not devote much time to reflecting on the meaning of space exploration or its impact on culture. Overall, this is a good general history, especially for those interested in the first two decades of the space age.
May 19, 2026
I had a pretty good time with this. It's not the most compellingly-written history book, but it's very comprehensive about all the things I'm personally interested in and it did exactly what it set out to do (provide a birds-eye view of the entire history of manned spaceflight). I loved how in-depth it went into all the littler-known chapters of space travel, like the Soviet space program and Apollo-Soyuz and Mir Station. It's interesting how it taps into that 2010s, pre-Trump 2.0 space optimism back when Elon was a humanitarian and an eccentric rather than a fascist loser, almost presenting him and the rest of the private space industry as the exciting next step in the adventure when in reality they're what's holding it back the most. I mean, this book was written back when Artemis was first announced and was aiming for 2023-2024, and now it's 2026 and while Artemis 2 just launched spectacularly, we have no planned launch date for Artemis 3 because Elon and Bezos are in a two-billionaire race to be the *slowest* at finishing their lunar landers. We gotta make space public again, I'm afraid.
October 10, 2021
This book provided exactly what I was looking for, an overview of the history of human space exploration thus far. It occasionally became slightly dry, as histories sometimes do, in periods where progress was steady and incremental, but the author avoided too much of this problem by simply summarising. The main example of this was a period with many successful space shuttle missions. Most of the time though, the author kept my interest, his style was very readable, and the book was a very enjoyable and interesting read.
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March 4, 2026Fairly dry and necessarily brisk summary of the history of crewed space flight. The Space Race gets the most attention and detail, although even this needs is quite light on colour and anecdote. The history of the space shuttle, MIR, ISS, Buran, China and India’s space programs get one lengthy but comprehensive chapter, followed by an outlook on future developments and commercial space flight that hasn’t really changed too much in 6 years. With its self contained chapters and thorough index it’s a useful reference.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews