A Ball, A Dog, and A Monkey

Fifty years after it began, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael D'Antonio captures the wackiness of the first year of the space race, as the U.S. scrambled desperately to match the Soviets and President Eisenhower intervened to guarantee that the space programme would be run by civilians and not the military.

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Full of exploding rockets, political wrangling, interservice rivalries, space cowboys, American spies, UFO sightings, Florida boomtowns and space-themed beauty pageants, the years 1957 and 1958 were a time when the U.S. raced to match the Soviets in space and recover its pride. After having gone through archives and film footage and having interviewed many of the scientists, reporters, and others who were involved in the first year of the space race, D'Antonio brings to life all the people, places, and stories of a time when the U.S. went space-crazy and a flying monkey helped save the day. His book revives the early days of space with all the zaniness and urgency of the time.