THE CHERTOK MEMOIRS
I was the Series Editor of a four-volume set of memoirs under the general title Rockets and People, written by a prominent Russian rocket and space designer, Boris Evseevich Chertok (1912-2011). These memoirs, which were originally published in Russian language versions between 1994 and 1999, collectively represent an extraordinarily rich resource on the history of the Soviet science in the twentieth century. Chertok, who was closely involved in numerous space projects at the height of the Cold War, combines a historian’s perspective with a uniquely humanistic viewpoint. As such, these volumes are an important resource for understanding the trajectory of science and technology under socialism.
These volumes were published by the NASA History Office.
I am told, hard copies of the books are no longer available from NASA. You can, however, obtain full PDF copies of the four volumes here. Individual copies of the four volumes are:
Rockets and People, Vol. I (Washington, DC: NASA History Office, 2005).
Rockets and People, Vol. II: Creating a Rocket Industry (Washington, DC: NASA History Office, 2006).
Rockets and People, Vol. III: Hot Days of the Cold War (Washington, DC: NASA History Office, 2009).
Rockets and People, Vol. IV: The Moon Race (Washington, DC: NASA History Office, 2011).
Chertok passed away at the age of 99 on December 14, 2011, just before Volume IV came out. I was in Moscow in January 2012 at a conference where a session was dedicated to his memory. Along with NASA Chief Historian William P. Barry, I had the opportunity to visit the S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Natural Sciences and Technology (of the Russian Academy of Sciences) to present them with copies of the book. See here (in Russian). Bill Barry did a nice write-up on the whole trip in the NASA History News & Notes newsletter, downloadable as a PDF file from here.
