Beyond

The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space

De: Stephen Walker

Narrado por: David Rintoul

“This remarkable account of the 1961 race into space is a thrilling piece of storytelling.... It is high definition history: tight, thrilling, and beautifully researched.” (The Times, London, front-page lead review)

“Beyond has the exhilaration of a fine thriller, but it is vividly embedded in the historic tensions of the Cold War, and peopled by men and women brought sympathetically, and sometimes tragically, to life.” (Colin Thubron, author of Shadow of the Silk Road)

09.07 am. April 12, 1961. A top secret rocket site in the USSR. A young Russian sits inside a tiny capsule on top of the Soviet Union’s most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile - originally designed to carry a nuclear warhead - and blasts into the skies. His name is Yuri Gagarin. And he is about to make history.

Travelling at almost 18,000 miles per hour - 10 times faster than a rifle bullet - Gagarin circles the globe in just 106 minutes. From his windows, he sees the Earth as nobody has before, crossing a sunset and a sunrise, crossing oceans and continents, witnessing its beauty and its fragility. While his launch begins in total secrecy, within hours of his landing, he has become a world celebrity - the first human to leave the planet.

Beyond tells the thrilling story behind that epic flight on its 60th anniversary. It happened at the height of the Cold War as the US and USSR confronted each other across an Iron Curtain. Both superpowers took enormous risks to get a man into space first, the Americans in the full glare of the media, the Soviets under deep cover. Both trained their teams of astronauts to the edges of the endurable. In the end, the race between them would come down to the wire.

Drawing on extensive original research and the vivid testimony of eyewitnesses, many of whom have never spoken before, Stephen Walker unpacks secrets that were hidden for decades and takes the listener into the drama of one of humanity’s greatest adventures - to the scientists, engineers, and political leaders on both sides, and, above all, to the American astronauts and their Soviet rivals battling for supremacy in the heavens.

©2021 Stephen Walker (P)2021 HarperCollins Publishers

Terrific story and performance.

I was curious about the life of Yuri Gagarin, the first human being in space, and knew very little of the Russian cosmonaut program.
This narrative telling of Yuri’s experience juxtaposed with the US Astronauts like Glen and Shepard is truly remarkable.
Great research, insight and story weaving that create a sense of urgency and magnitude. When Yuri is about to blast off you become glued to the narrator and when the rocket finally bursts off the ground I yelled out loud in jubilation. Highly recommend.

The Soviet story was interesting

Great story, formulated and narrated superbly. Except for... and this drives me crazy. NASA Langley Research Center is in Hampton, VA, not in Langley VA where CIA headquarters is. They are 3 hours apart.

Riveting

One of the most entertaining non-fiction books I’ve listened to all year the narration was superb

A true "untold story"

Although many books advertise being "the untold story'", this one really meets that boast and more. I learned more about the Soviet space program from this book then in the many years since Yuri Gagarin's historic flight. The author deftly explores the character of Gagarin and the flaws in the program that nearly killed him. The Soviet system, and the people who made it up its space program are artfully chronicled in this book, as well as the struggle of the US to compete. I highly recommended this book.

What a Ride!!

Well written and researched. Exciting!
A Fantastic reading!
The book covers the American space program of the early 1960’s also.

riskier venture than we ever knew

this story reveals what we didn't know at the time especially the failures and risks. it begs the question would the cosmonauts and astronauts have been so gung ho if they had a clearer understanding of the dangers they faced

The Story Not Told In School

Often given just a footnote in history, the story of the first man in orbit is an astounding telling of the USSR’s attempt to stay ahead in the conquering of space is a compelling one of adventure and all the human stories related to Yuri Gargarin. Highly recommended.

Captivating story of the early space race

This is the best book I’ve listened to in a long time. Even if you know the early history of the US and USSR space programs, this book will have you on the edge of your seat. The narrator is also excellent. Highly recommend!

Fascinating Look at the Space Race

This is a really well done behind-the-scenes look at the early space race from both the USA and USSR sides. While the focus seemed to gradually hone in on our hero, Yuri Gagarin, as the book went on, there was a lot of interesting information presented regarding the USA’s Mercury program and the launches and obstacles that led up to it; and a lot of comparing and contrasting NASA operations with that of the Soviets’ Vostok space program. The Russians kept the innerworkings of their space program absolutely secret until the fall of the Soviet Union, thirty years after Gagarin’s flight. The book conveys the high level of pressure put on both space programs to get the first man in space. It was the Cold War and showing that capitalism and communism was the supreme way of life was of utmost importance for the respective nations. And as an American who has closely followed NASA his whole life I found it most interesting to see the space race from a Russian point of view.

Up until Yuri’s famous space flight, I was fascinated with the comparisons of the progress made by the two manned space programs. The Soviets always seemed to be one step ahead of the Americans and more focused, and they preferred to keep their advancements a secret. Meanwhile, the Americans were putting everything out for the world to see and publicly showing off the Mercury 7 astronauts in the national media. The Soviet space flight finalists were called the Vanguard 6 and they trained in anonymity.

Both countries used a variety of animals for their pre-human space flights. The book covers these launches and the plight of the space animals in detail. The Russians favored dogs while the American favored primates. The book should carry a trigger warning about the suffering some of these animals entailed. Cameras on board showed some of them in distress and the parts describing USA's chimp Ham’s perilous journey aboard the American Redstone rocket was hard to read.

Both countries desperately wanted to put the first man in space, and American leadership didn’t quite know how far along the Russians were so when Gagarin’s capsule was detected orbiting the globe it was an embarrassment for Kennedy and the US space program. This embarrassment along with the Bay of Pigs fiasco really lit a fuse under JFK and inspired him to attempt to win the race once and for all by putting a human on the moon, the goal which he so eloquently announced in his famous Rice University speech. (The 21 minute long speech is on YouTube and is magnificent)

My favorite parts of the book were the behind-the-scenes look at the early Soviet space program and the life of Yuri Gagarin, subjects I knew little about, and the detailed play-by-play description of Gagarin's famous space flight and peculiar events related to his off-target landing in a plowed field. He instantly became a national hero and international celebrity. The book goes on to tell how the event shaped Gagarin’s life. The last few chapters and epilogue were hard to stop listening too.

Based on the magnitude and difficulty of Gagarin’s flight, and his intelligence, bravery, charisma, good looks, and star power of the day, I’m surprised there hasn’t been a major motion picture made of this event, or of his life for that matter. This was the first human being to travel to outer space. I mean, this guy antagonized Nazis as a pre-teen when his Russian hometown was occupied during WWII. His life is a fascinating story in itself. He went from being an unknown to the most famous person in the world in 108 minutes!

Less than a month after Gagarin's flight, Alan Shepard became the first American in space but his 15 minute flight paled in comparison to the Russian’s 108 minute flight, and Shepard did not even orbit the earth like Gagarin did. In his Mercury capsule, he splashed down in the Atlantic, only 263 miles east of Florida.

This was expertly narrated by David Rintoul. I will need to track down a copy of the paper book to see the pictures.

Outstanding account and well read too

Also useful for info on the US program I hadn't read elsewhere too (and I've read almost all the us astro bios and more)