Space: A Reading List

By Dr Brian Laslie

As the combatant command of the ‘newly re-established’ United States Space Command inches closer to being stood up (or reincarnated we are really not sure), we at From Balloons to Drones thought now would be an opportune time to publish articles, book reviews, and reading lists on the very best of space scholarship.[1] The simple fact is that here at the site we have focused almost exclusively on air power. We just have not gone high enough. Therefore, to make a mid-course correction, we are looking to expand into air and space power. The first step is this reading list. Hopefully to be followed by book reviews and original articles like this one here that we have previously published.

Our Assistant Editor, Brian Laslie, has chosen to divide this reading list up: Primer texts, NASA and civilian histories, and finally a list of biographies, memoirs and autobiographies.

Much of what you will find below was done in coordination with historians at the United States Air Force Academy, Air Command and Staff College, and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies. We reached out to some of their senior scholars for their list of ‘must reads’ plus what they assign to students. We also reached out to several academic presses who specialise in space scholarship. Here you will find some of the usual suspects (University Press of Kentucky, MIT, Johns Hopkins), but also some really impressive works out of the University Press of Florida, look for book reviews of some of these titles below coming shortly. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but we believe that if you are interested in expanding your space knowledge, professionally or for fun, this list is a great place to start.

Primer Texts:

• Ted Spitzmiller, The History of Human Space Flight (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2017);
• Michael J. Neufeld, Spaceflight: A Concise History (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018);
• Walter A. McDougall, The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1985);
• William F. Burrows, This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age (New York, NY: Random House, 1998);
• A. Heppenheimer, Countdown: A History of Spaceflight (New York, NY: Wiley, 1997);
• Everett C. Dolman, Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (London: Frank Cass, 2002);
• Joan Johnson-Freese, Space as a Strategic Asset (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007);
• Matthew Brezezinski, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age (New York, NY: Times Books, 2007);
• John Klein, Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles and Policy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006);
• David Spires, Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership, Revised Edition (Maxwell, AL: Air Force Space Command in association with Air University Press, 1998);
• Bruce DeBlois (ed.), Beyond the Paths of Heaven: The Emergence of Space Power Thought (Maxwell, AL: Air University Press, 1999).

NASA History Series (@NASAhistory)

The NASA History Office runs arguably the single best history program in the entirety of the United States Government. With dozens of publications (and most available to download for free here, this is the first place you should stop for the history of space flight in the United States. More recently some of their titles have been re-published with the University of Florida Press.

So much of the literature of the space race focused exclusively on the American perspective. Even the Soviet ‘firsts’ are often viewed through the lens of how other Americans reacted. If you are interested in the development of the Soviet space programs there is Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race (2000) by Asif A. Siddiqi and the four-volume set by Boris Chertok Rockets and People (2005 to 2012) which provides ‘direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space.’

If the early American experience in spaceflight interests you then download: Where no Man has Gone Before: A History of the Apollo Lunar Exploration Missions (1989) by William David Compton, Project Apollo: The Tough Decisions (2007) by Robert C. Seamans, Jr., On the Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini (2010) by Barton C. Hacker and James M. Grimwood, and “Before this Decade is Out” Personal Reflections of the Apollo Program (1999) edited by Glen. E. Swanson

Under the UPF bin there is Pat Duggins, The Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program (2008) which seems a bit dated in 2019 (there is a reference to a pre-iPad that might perplex readers) but provides an excellent treatment of the history of the Shuttle Program as well as NASA’s uncertain future.

The Final Mission: Preserving NASA’s Apollo Sites (2018) by Lisa Westwood, Beth O’Leary, and Milford W. Donaldson details the importance preserving sites related to the Project Apollo and moon missions both here on Earth and the lunar surface.

Other works by NASA or UPF that are well worth your time include: Safely to Earth: The Men and Women who Brought the Astronauts Home (2018) by Jack Clemons, and Spies and Shuttles: NASA’s Secret Relationships with the DOD and CIA (2015) by James David. If you are an engineer by trade or just interested in highly technical work, there is Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles (1999) by Roger Bilstein

Memoirs and Biographies:

There are dozens of books in this genre from the ‘Golden Age of Manned Spaceflight.’ Many of the Mercury, Gemini, and particularly the Apollo astronauts either wrote a memoir or have had a biography published. We cannot list them all here, but we agree the following rate among the very best: First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong (2018) by James R. Hansen, Carrying the Fire: An Astronauts Journey (2001) by Michael Collins, The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America’s Race in Space (1999) by Eugene Cernan, Apollo Pilot: The Memoir of Astronaut Donn Eisele (2017) by Don Eisele, and Calculated Risk The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom (2016) by George Leopold.

More recent works by the space shuttle and ISS astronauts include Scott Kelly’s Endurance about his year in space. As space flight becomes increasingly commercialised, the recently published The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos (2018) by Christian Davenport were also showing up from many of the academic institutions with whom we spoke.

Finally, in a departure from the readings above, we recommend the YouTube channel of Amy Shira Teitel. Amy is a ‘spaceflight historian, author, YouTuber, and popular space personality,’ who does a great job in her web series Vintage Space.

Again, this is not a comprehensive list, but rather a starting point. As interest increases and we enter what may very well be a second golden age of space exploration, these are the titles that provide the background and history of working with, in, and through the space domain. If you have suggestions, leave them in the comments.

Dr Brian Laslie is an Air Force Historian and currently the Deputy Command Historian at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). A 2001 graduate of The Citadel and a historian of air power studies, he received his PhD from Kansas State University in 2013. His first book The Air Force Way of War (2015) was selected for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s and the Royal Air Force’s Chief of the Air Staff professional reading lists. His recently published Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the US Air Force. He lives in Colorado Springs. He can be found on Twitter at @BrianLaslie.

Header Image: The US Air Force launches the ninth Boeing-built Wideband Global SATCOM satellite at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida., 18 March 2017. Such satellites play an integral part in the strategic and tactical coordination of military operations. (Source: US Department of Defense)

[1] There continues to be debate about whether the U.S. Space Command is being re-established from its predecessor or if this truly a new combatant command