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The Space Race  By  cover art

The Space Race

By: Colin Brake, Patrick Chapman, Richard Hollingham, Richard Kurti, Sue Nelson, Helen Quigley, Andrew Mark Sewell
Narrated by: Kate Mulgrew
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Publisher's summary

Winner of the Gold Science & Technology trophy at the 2020 New York Festivals Radio Awards

The 1960s space race captured our imaginations and our dreams. Today’s efforts to revitalize and expand space travel is being driven not just by government agencies such as NASA, but also by visionaries such as Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), Elon Musk (SpaceX), and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin).

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing, this major documentary-drama series brings to life the past, present, and future of man’s exploration of space. Between 1969 and 1972, twelve Americans walked on the moon. You’ll get to experience the thrill of that era and much, much more.

Narrated by Kate Mulgrew (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee for Orange Is the New Black; Obie Award winner for Iphigenia 2.0); TV: Star Trek: Voyager, film: Star Trek: Nemesis), The Space Race uses actual audio, original interviews, dramatic reconstructions, and first-hand accounts to tell the story of mankind’s first amazing steps off our world and onto the lunar surface.

With unprecedented access, The Space Race takes listeners to Virgin Galactic’s space program in the Mojave Desert, features conversations with Buzz Aldrin, Gene Cernan, Sergei Krikalev, Tim Peake, and numerous key players at mission control. This Audible Original and takes you behind the scenes to see how these exciting adventures in outer space came to be.

©2019 Audible, Ltd (P)2019 Audible, Ltd

Our favorite moments from The Space Race

"We’re bringing you the latest pictures from Europa."
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Preparing for success or failure
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Selling the idea of a space station
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  • The Space Race
  • "We’re bringing you the latest pictures from Europa."
  • The Space Race
  • Preparing for success or failure
  • The Space Race
  • Selling the idea of a space station

Publisher's summary

Winner of the Gold Science & Technology trophy at the 2020 New York Festivals Radio Awards

The 1960s space race captured our imaginations and our dreams. Today’s efforts to revitalize and expand space travel is being driven not just by government agencies such as NASA, but also by visionaries such as Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), Elon Musk (SpaceX), and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin).

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing, this major documentary-drama series brings to life the past, present, and future of man’s exploration of space. Between 1969 and 1972, twelve Americans walked on the moon. You’ll get to experience the thrill of that era and much, much more.

Narrated by Kate Mulgrew (Emmy Award and Golden Globe nominee for Orange Is the New Black; Obie Award winner for Iphigenia 2.0); TV: Star Trek: Voyager, film: Star Trek: Nemesis), The Space Race uses actual audio, original interviews, dramatic reconstructions, and first-hand accounts to tell the story of mankind’s first amazing steps off our world and onto the lunar surface.

With unprecedented access, The Space Race takes listeners to Virgin Galactic’s space program in the Mojave Desert, features conversations with Buzz Aldrin, Gene Cernan, Sergei Krikalev, Tim Peake, and numerous key players at mission control. This Audible Original and takes you behind the scenes to see how these exciting adventures in outer space came to be.

©2019 Audible, Ltd (P)2019 Audible, Ltd
.

About the Creator

Colin Brake was trained in script editing by Tony Holland, the co-creator of EastEnders, and subsequently worked on the award-winning BBC soap as a story editor and as a story line editor. He was a writer and script executive for the 1990s Carnival Films/BBC Saturday night adventure series BUGS. He has written scripts for a variety of shows including EastEnders, Crossroads, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Byker Grove, and more than 30 episodes of the BBC daytime soap, Doctors. He has also written Doctor Who and Jago & Litefoot audio dramas for Big Finish. Additionally, he is a published author, having written novels for the best-selling BBC Books series of Doctor Who fiction (Price of Paradise, Judgement of the Judoon), as well as original children’s novels (Gunk Aliens), novelizations (Merlin), interactive fiction (Decide Your Destiny), and franchise fiction (Transformers, Doctor Who).

About the Creator

Patrick Chapman is an award-winning writer based in Dublin, Ireland. His audio work includes writing for Doctor Who (Big Finish) and B7 Media’s Dan Dare, as well as writing for the Audible documentary-drama series, The Space Race. He was producer on B7’s NY Festivals award-winning 2014 dramatization of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles for BBC Radio. Other work includes 20 episodes of animated television (Garth & Bev, Wildernuts, Sydney Sailboat/Bubble Bath Bay, The Wild Adventures of Blinky Bill) and Burning the Bed, an award-winning short film. He has published eight poetry collections and four books of fiction since 1991, most recently Slow Clocks of Decay; So Long, Napoleon Solo; Anhedonia; and Open Season on the Moon. With poet Dimitra Xidous, he founded and edits the poetry magazine The Pickled Body. He won first prize for a story in the 2003 Cinescape Genre Literary Contest, was twice a finalist in the Hennessy Literary Awards, and in 2010 received a coveted Pushcart Prize nomination.

About the Producer

Multi-award-winning science and environment journalist Richard Hollingham is an experienced radio producer, space correspondent for BBC Future, and a launch commentator for the European Space Agency. Winner of an Arthur C. Clarke Award for Space Achievement: Media, Broadcast, and Written, and runner-up in both the Best British Science Writer and Best Radio Program categories of the 2018 Association of British Science Writers’ Awards, he is a former Senior Producer for BBC’s flagship news program, Today, and its first science producer. A producer/host of the award-winning Space Boffins podcast and hundreds of BBC radio programs, Richard has written for New Scientist, Discover, and most national UK newspapers. Richard is author of Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery and co-author with Sue Nelson of How to Clone the Perfect Blonde (long-listed for the 2004 Royal Society science book prize).

About the Creator

Richard Kurti is a screenwriter and novelist whose film writing includes commissions for US studios (Universal, Warner Bros, Miramax, and Fox Searchlight) and UK companies such as Working Title and Pathe. In television his credits include BBC adaptations of Kidnapped (2005) and Sherlock Holmes (2007), episodes of Robin Hood (BBC), Primeval (ITV), Sinbad (Sky), Wolfblood (CBBC), and a large-scale adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal for Sky (2010). He has written several radio plays for BBC Radio 4 and Audible Originals, including critically acclaimed dramatizations of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (2014), Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (winner, Best Audio Drama, 2016 Audie Awards), Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot (2017), and the re-imagining of comic-strip space hero Dan Dare (winner, Best Online Drama, NYC International Radio Program Awards 2018). He has also written two YA novels for Walker Books—Monkey Wars and Maladapted. His novels, TV, and radio dramas have won multiple awards and nominations.

About the Producer

An award-winning radio producer, science journalist, and former BBC-TV science and environment correspondent, Sue Nelson has reported on science for all the BBC’s national television and radio news programs. She has hosted numerous Radio 4 programs, was editor of The Biologist (2010–15), and produces documentaries for BBC Radio. She also co-produces/hosts the Space Boffins podcast. Sue is a published playwright, has written for a TV game show, most of the UK’s newspapers, and has had several screenplays made into short films. Her book,Wally Funk’s Race for Space, was published in the UK (2018) and the US (2019).

About the Producer

Helen Quigley is a voice-over artist and producer with nearly twenty years’ experience in producing audio for broadcast. As a producer, her work includes network radio commercials for the BBC’s flagship TV programming, including Poldark, Line of Duty, Doctor Foster, The Apprentice, and Blue Planet II. Previously she was a continuity announcer and producer for Comedy Central UK, working with up-and-coming comedians. As a voice-over artist, she records commercials, training modules, telephone messages for major tech companies, and narration for web videos—from corporate to comic—including the worldwide viral hit, Porn Sex vs. Real Sex: The Differences Explained with Food, viewed more than 18 million times on YouTube.

About the Producer/Director

Andrew Mark Sewell is a multi-award-winning independent filmmaker, broadcast executive, and radio drama producer/director. Formerly creative director at BBC Worldwide, he was involved in all phases of preparing customized cross-format packages for broadcast. Credits include Tomorrow’s World+, Ghostwatch LIVE, and Walking with Dinosaurs. In radio, Sewell has a growing reputation for producing dramatic, widescreen audio stories, which sound lived-in, real, and cinematic. His name has become synonymous with some of the most popular science fiction audio drama produced in the last decade, including the BBC television series Blake’s 7 (BBC Radio) and Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (BBC Radio). Film credits include Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (Best Narrative Feature, 2006 Palm Springs International Film Festival), The Cuckoo in the Clock, and Roundabout. Awards include Best Digital Drama for Dan Dare (BBC Radio) at the NYC International Radio Program Awards (2018), adding to his double Best Director wins in 2017 for I, Robot (BBC Radio) and Dan Dare. Sewell was also twice nominated as Best Drama Producer at the AudioUK Production Awards (2015, 2017).

About the Performer

Kate Mulgrew stars as Galina "Red" Reznikov, the tough Russian prison chef who is always keeping score, in the series Orange Is the New Black. She received a Critics Choice Television Award and a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her work. Mulgrew is internationally recognized as Captain Janeway, the first leading-role female captain in the Star Trek TV franchise in Star Trek: Voyager. Her career spans film, television, and the stage. Classically trained, she received a Golden Globe nomination at the age of 23 for her portrayal of Mrs. Columbo, the wife of the famous TV detective. Other notable television appearances include Kate Loves a Mystery, Cheers, Murphy Brown, St. Elsewhere, Ryan’s Hope, The Black Donnellys, Mercy, Warehouse 13, NTSF:SD:SUV::, and Mr. Mercedes. Film roles include Throw Momma from the Train, Star Trek: Nemesis, A Stranger Is Watching, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, and The Response. Mulgrew has toured throughout the United States as Katharine Hepburn in Tea at Five, for which she was nominated for Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel awards. Other theater credits include Equus, The American Dream, The Sandbox, Iphigenia 2.0 (for which she won an Obie), Our Leading Lady, Black Comedy, Titus Andronicus, and Somewhere Fun, all in New York. She performed in The Exonerated in London and regionally in The Royal Family, The Film Society, What the Butler Saw, Hedda Gabler, Measure for Measure, The Real Thing, Another Part of the Forest, Major Barbara, and Antony and Cleopatra. Her first book, Born with Teeth, a memoir about life lived to the fullest, made The New York Times best seller list. Her second book, How to Forget: A Daughter’s Memoir, was released in 2019. She resides in New York City.

What listeners say about The Space Race

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Just okay

It goes through the history pretty well, then goes in to the hypothetical future. It’s kind of frustrating in the historical parts that they mix actual historic audio with actors portrayals of historical quotes.

The information is good. I’m usually not big in to the full cast productions on audible, but overall this one was okay. Overall I would say worth a credit if you’re into spaceflight.

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7 people found this helpful

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Good but...

Lots of interesting history and some things that I had never heard before. I just wonder why the narrator could pronounce complicated Russian names but consistently pronounced NASA as a city in the Bahamas.

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6 people found this helpful

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Loved it

I found it really interesting! The only complaint I have is with the narrator. Wouldn’t have been my first choice. And when the rest of the country pronounces NASA as Nass-uh, why does she keep calling it Nass-ah, like Nassau? That was annoying. But the story was very Interesting

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Great history lesson with eye on the future.

Really love the actual audio of the early space missions. Great insight in the space programs and the future we might be heading to

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Eye opener and brain food

I learned alot about the history of space exploration and the things they dont teach you at school, i specially liked the last chapter, which tackled philosophical questions and speculated about what may be in the future for space exploration.

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History... and beyond!

This Audible comes alive with interviews of astronauts, imaginations of the future and overall a great listen!

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An entertaining 9+ hours

Enjoyed this audiobook from the start to finish. It was entertaining, informative, interesting and kept my attention for the full 9+ hours.

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History of space

Anyone looking to learn more about space programs this is a good listen to understand where the space program started and where it Is maybe going to go.

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loved it couldn't put it on pause hahaha

great book and definitely recommend it I will re listen to it again and again, why do I need 15 words here????

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A Great Summary of Human Space Development

Great presentation of how we got to the present state of humans in space with some thoughts on the future. Got me more up to date on events I had missed in the past or forgotten.

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