The behind-the-scenes story of the fierce battles on Earth that launched the superpowers into space

'Brzezinski is admirably balanced in this history of the world's first space race and he draws out well both the true strategic importance of that first flight and the sheer complacency of the Americans' Sunday Times

'Wonderfully colourful ... combines a scientific plotline with the history and characters of a Cold War thriller' The Times

On 4 October 1957, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union secretly launched Sputnik, Earth's first artificial moon.

Powered by a car battery, it passed over the stunned American continent once every 101 minutes and propelled the USSR from backward state to superpower and pioneer of the Space Age. The USA could not let this go unanswered. The race was on.

This is the pulse-racing story of a time when two nations and ideologies were pitted against each other in a quest that laid the foundations of the modern technological world.