This spring marks sixty years of human space flight, which began on a spring morning with the launch of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit aboard Vostok 1. What led to that historic flight and the launch of American astronaut Alan Shepard weeks later has been the subject of much mythmaking and propaganda in the decades since. Telling the incredible story of Gagarin's flight and the events surrounding it is the new book Beyond by author Stephen Walker.
In telling the story of the first human space flight, Walker takes his readers on a journey through some of the chilliest years of the Cold War. Opening on the morning of Gagarin's launch, the book then makes its way forward, introducing the various figures whose lives and fates intertwined with the launch of Vostok 1. They include Gagarin and the "Chief Designer" of the Soviet space program Sergei Korolev, a victim of the Stalinist gulags now leading the Soviet leg of the space race, with Walker exploring the father-son relationship that sprung up between the two men. There are the witnesses to history, such as the filmmaker Vladimir Suvorov and Gagarin's American rival Shephard, as well as the back-ups to the men vying to be first into space: Gherman Titov and John Glenn. Walker also takes readers into the halls of power in Washington and Moscow, examining the differing views of the space race in these early days and how the events that would follow would reshape the leadership of both John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. In doing so, Walker presents them as characters worthy of a great novel, men both common and powerful, in places high and low, shaped by and shaping titanic events that will change their world.
That almost novelistic touch extends to the rest of Beyond as well. Drawing on a wealth of new interviews, archival materials, and even the illicit journals of some of the Soviet participants, such as cosmonaut training chief Nikolai Kamanin, Walker also paints such vivid images in words of the events taking place. Whether it's capturing the debates between Korolev and the KGB about carrying a bomb aboard the Vostok should it end up landing outside the Soviet sphere of influence to the arguments inside NASA about how to deal with issues surrounding the Redstone rocket, Walker's prose keeps the book moving. He also engages in some much-needed myth-busting, taking apart the legends and propaganda about how Gagarin became the first cosmonaut to fly, for example, or seeking out the origins of the "phantom cosmonauts" supposedly launched before Gagarin.
All of this building up, of course, to the flight itself. Walker's presentation of the countdown and then Gagarin's 108-minute space flight captures the tension of those moments and the incredible but true details worthy of a Hollywood movie. Who could believe that the first man launched into space spent part of his last minutes on Earth listening to folk songs, or how close he came to death plummeting back down to Earth, say? All presented with an eye for detail, yet also in telling what occurred as accurately as possible. Indeed, those pages covering much of Beyond's last act is a master class of non-fiction writing: engaging, informative, and accessible to even those with a modicum of interest in the topic.
Whether you are interested in the space race or simply seeking a good history read, Beyond comes highly recommended. From a wealth of research to prose worthy of a novel at its best, Walker takes readers back to the days when the roar of rockets could make the world stand in awe as the path to the stars first opened up for humanity. At this moment in time when the stars call to us again, and it seems like more of us might one day make the journey Gagarin first made sixty years ago, Walker's Beyond reminds us of where it all began with one incredible and risky leap into the beyond.
Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space
4.7 | 855 ratings
Price: 21.59
Last update: 01-29-2025
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Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2022
Published in 2021, Walker’s book is the story of Yuri Gagarin’s historic first flight in space, accomplished in April of 1961 to the astonishment of the world. I wanted to say “as the world looked on,” but I couldn’t, because the feat was mostly over before it was even announced. In fact, almost no one was looking on. Such was the Soviet Union’s obsessive secrecy about its space program that few Russians even knew Gagarin’s name until he was halfway through his 108-minute mission, a single orbit around Earth in a Soviet-made Vostok spacecraft launched atop a converted R-7 missile.
The diminutive Gagarin—he stood only five feet, five inches tall—may have taken off as a nobody, but he returned from space a combination of Lenin, Lindbergh, and Elvis. He was the most famous man in the world. Citizens of the Soviet Union in general and Moscow in particular danced in the streets, giddy with excitement at claiming the honor of the first crewed space flight and thereby beating the capitalist warmongers in Washington. Others were not amused. Al Shepard, for example, who became the first American in space just a few weeks later, pounded a table with his fist when he heard the news of Gagarin’s exploit. He might have been the first star traveler, if not for what he saw as excessive caution on the part of certain NASA engineers.
Most of us know Gagarin by name, but the details of his background, training, and mission have till now been somewhat sketchy. Walker does a great job of showing us the people behind the first flight—Gagarin himself, called “Yura” by friends and family; his friend and chief rival Gherman Titov; Gagarin’s family; and the shadowy Chief Rocket Maker himself, Sergei Korolev. Korolev and Gagarin are the two most prominent figures in the book, and their bond, several times likened to that of father and son, provides one of the chief emotional anchors of the tale. Gagarin is open, engaging, cheerful and earnest. Korolev—who survived imprisonment and hard labor under Stalin—is a brilliant, driven, occasionally unscrupulous dreamer who almost singlehandedly wills the Soviet space program into existence. Like Gagarin, Korolev spent his career before the First Flight in obscurity. Unlike Yura, he continued to haunt the shadows after the famous mission, doomed to anonymity by his KGB overlords who felt that even allowing the West to learn Korolev’s name might somehow compromise Soviet space efforts. Indeed, this absurd zeal for subterfuge permeates the story, as we learn of the socialists’ secret spacecraft command codes, a hidden rocket launch complex, and the veil of deception draped over the fact that Gagarin didn’t land in his spaceship, but rather was ejected from it at an altitude of around 20,000 feet and parachuted to Earth, a detail that was long hidden by Moscow for fear that it might disqualify its first cosmonaut from setting records as defined by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.
As we count down with increasing excitement to the date of Gagarin’s launch—something the Soviets didn’t do, by the way, as they have never used the classic 10-9-8-7 routine — we meet a host of characters, from Nikita Khrushchev to John F. Kennedy, from John Glenn to Soviet filmmaker Vladimir Suvorov. We learn the differences between the ideal astronaut and the perfect cosmonaut, watch as animals are tested—and, frankly, tortured—to determine whether mammals could survive in space, and see how and why JFK went from space skeptic to author of the 20th Century’s most famous challenge—the one that sent Neil and Buzz to the moon and established American dominance in space technology once but perhaps not forever.
I’m not a particularly generous reader. I can almost always find something about a book that I would change or delete or expand on. I have to say, though, that Walker’s account seemed just about perfect. I could occasionally see gears turning as the author ended chapters with a gentle expository teaser, but that’s okay. That’s how narrative works. And this time it works exceedingly well. If you’re interested in space exploration, move Carrying the Fire, A Man on the Moon, and Falling to Earth over a few inches on your bookshelf. You’re going to want to put Walker’s work up there with them.
Trust me. You’ll be enthralled till the very end—and maybe even beyond.
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Delta D.Fascinating and detailed account, slightly marred by jingoism
CuriousMarc