Book description
A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey
tells the remarkable story of America's first efforts to succeed in
space, a time of exploding rockets, national space mania, Florida
boomtowns, and interservice rivalries so fierce that President Dwight
Eisenhower had to referee them.
When the Soviet Union launched the first orbital satellite,
Sputnik I, Americans panicked. The Soviets had nuclear
weapons, the Cold War was underway, and now the USSR had taken the
lead in the space race. Members of Congress and the press called for
an all-out effort to launch a satellite into orbit. With dire warnings
about national security in the news almost every day, the armed
services saw space as the new military frontier. But President
Eisenhower insisted that the space effort, which relied on military
technology, be supervised by civilians so that the space race would be
peaceful. The Navy's Vanguard program flopped, and the Army, led by
ex-Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and a martinet general
named J. Bruce Medaris (whom Eisenhower disliked), took over.
Meanwhile, the Soviets put a dog inside the next Sputnik, and
Americans grew more worried as the first animal in space whirled
around the Earth.
Throughout 1958 America went space crazy. UFO sightings spiked. Boys
from Brooklyn to Burbank shot model rockets into the air. Space-themed
beauty pageants became a national phenomenon. The news media flocked
to the launchpads on the swampy Florida coast, and reporters
reinvented themselves as space correspondents. And finally the Army's
rocket program succeeded. Determined not to be outdone by the
Russians, America's space scientists launched the first primate into
space, a small monkey they nicknamed Old Reliable for his calm
demeanor. And then at Christmastime, Eisenhower authorized the launch
of a secret satellite with a surprise aboard.
A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey memorably recalls the infancy of
the space race, a time when new technologies brought ominous danger
but also gave us the ability to realize our dreams and reach for the
stars.
Michael D'Antonio is the author of many acclaimed
books, including Atomic Harvest, Fall from Grace, Tin Cup Dreams,
Mosquito, and The State Boys Rebellion. His work has also
appeared in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times
Magazine, Discover, and many other publications. Among his many
awards is the Pulitzer Prize, which he shared with a team of reporters
for Newsday.
