Summary: Space Race is a nicely written, relatively non technical narrative focusing on the parallel careers of Wernher Von Braun and Sergi Korolev. Von Braun is well known to anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the early US space program; Korolev was the mysterious "Chief Designer" whose identity was only revealed by the USSR upon his premature death.

The book spends considerable time on the early years of both individuals, and does not shy away from the seamier side of Von Braun's past in Nazi Germany. It also details Korolev's time in the Gulag, which resulted from false accusations during Stalin's reign of terror.

The most interesting feature of this book, without a doubt, is the look at the life of Korolev, portrayed as the mysterious "chief designer" in the film version of The Right Stuff. His identity kept a secret until his death, very little has been known about him. Far from a domineering figure, Korolev spent his career fighting against competing Soviet design bureaus for funds and recognition, maintaining his status simply because his actual accomplishments were greater than those who were fighting him for resources and recognition. His success is best understood by the consideration of this fact: his R-7 was the first true ICBM, launched the first satellite (Sputnik) and the first manned mission (Vostok), and remains the foundation of the Russian space program today, as the Soyuz and Progress are still launched on modernized versions of the R-7. By comparision, while the US still has a launch vehicle called the "Atlas", it has little in common with the original Atlas ICBM that was used to launch the first orbital Mercury flights.

The contrast of Von Braun and Korolev is well handled; while Korolev was exiled in the Gulag, Von Braun was building his A4 rocket for Nazi Germany (later labeled the V-2 by Hitler). As Nazi Germany collapsed, the rehabilitation of Korolev began, and the West and the East began angling to get their hands on the best German scientists available. The narrative of Von Braun's escape and the Soviet attempt to grab up as many of his team as they can is fascinating, as is the discussion of the American effort to hide evidence of Von Braun's team's complicity in running the slave labor camps that built the V-2.

A fine job is done capturing the nature of the early Soviet program, which had its share of disasters and fiascos (but they were different from the oft rumored disasters and fiascos talked about in the West). It also captures well the fact that Korolev was often forced away from his straightline development program to work on publicity stunts to satify Khrushchev's propaganda requirements; these stunts (first 3 man flight, first space walk, first apparent rendevous in space) fueled the early American inferiority complex, but were in fact annoying deviations from the task at hand for Korolev.

On the American side, it's nice to see proper attention to the fact that Von Braun was not responsible for the entire program in the US. In the oversimplified film The Right Stuff, Von Braun shows the first Mercury capsule to the original astronauts, and is admonished by them over the lack of pilot control. Cadbury clearly indicates that Max Faget was in charge of capsule design, not Von Braun, and points out that Von Braun advocated full pilot control over the craft in opposition to Chris Kraft and others who wanted to build what we know of today as "mission control".

I rather like this book, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a readable, accurate introduction to the early years of the space race.