by Amy Cherrix
“Wernher von Braun was . . . spaceflight?”: Peenemünde Historical Technical Museum display, Peenemünde, Germany, visited by the author, April 7, 2019.
About the Author
Photo by Jon Menick
AMY CHERRIX is the author of the middle grade nonfiction books Backyard Bears: Conservation, Habitat Changes, and the Rise of Urban Wildlife and Eye of the Storm: NASA, Drones, and the Race to Crack the Hurricane Code, a Subaru Prize for Excellence in Middle Grade Science Books finalist. In her nonwriting life, Amy is the children’s book buyer at Malaprop’s Bookstore in Asheville, NC. This is her first book for teens. You can find her online at www.amycherrix.com.
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In the Shadow of the Moon
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Copyright
Photograph credits: here: © Deutsches Museum, Munich, archives, R0158-01; here, here, here, here, here: © US Space & Rocket Center; here: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Stock Photo; here and here: Photos by Amy Cherrix; here, here, here, here: Bettmann/Getty Images; here: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo; here, here, here: Sputnik/Alamy Stock Photo; here: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images; here, here, here, here: NASA/MSFC; here: Photo by Ernest C. Smartt/Image courtesy of Huntsville-Madison County Public Library; here: Universal Images Group North America LLC/Alamy Stock Photo; here, here, here: ITAR-TASS News Agency/Alamy Stock Photo; here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here: NASA; here: [Petition for Naturalization of Wernher von Braun, May 10, 1950; Petitions for Naturalization, 1909–1963; Records of the U.S. District Courts (Birmingham, Alabama), Record Group 21]/National Archives at Atlanta; here: NASA/JPL-Caltech; here: Ralph Morse/Getty Images; here and here: Sovfoto/Getty Images; here: NASA (HQ # 63-Admin-60); here: Central Press/Getty Images; here: Collection of Asif Siddiqi; Cover Reference (Korolev): Sputnik/Alamy Stock Photo; Cover reference (von Braun): Imago History Collection/Alamy Stock Photo.
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON: AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE SPACE RACE. Copyright © 2021 by Amy E. Cherrix. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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COVER ART © 2021 BY LEO NICKOLLS
COVER DESIGN BY JESSIE GANG
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949242
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-288877-8
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-288875-4
* * *
2021222324PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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1The Osenberg List was compiled and maintained by Dr. Werner Osenberg, a mechanical engineer, a member of Hitler’s SS, and a high-ranking member of the Gestapo, the Nazis’ secret police.
2It’s possible that the Knight’s Cross award ceremony took place at a different castle, Schloss Berg.
3A rare photograph, which appears in Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War, by Michael J. Neufeld, shows a half-hidden Wernher von Braun wearing his black Nazi uniform walking with Heinrich Himmler and Walter Dornberger. Neufeld asserts in the image’s caption that “it is almost certainly von Braun.”
4Walter Dornberger was detained in Germany for further questioning by the British and did not depart with von Braun on September 18, 1945. He eventually immigrated to the United States in 1947, after being cleared of war crimes by the British, and worked as an adviser to the US government on military missile technology.
5The Vanguard program eventually achieved success on March 17, 1958, by placing the world’s first solar-powered satellite into orbit. Although contact with it was lost in 1964, Vanguard 1 remains the oldest artificial satellite in Earth orbit.
6Kurt Debus went on to serve as the first director of NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center. During World War II, he was a member of the Nazi SS.
7Neither Kennedy nor his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, knew about von Braun’s complicity in the crimes committed at Mittelwerk. The truth would not be discovered for another twenty years, after both former presidents had died.
8The actual cost of the N-1 would be four billion rubles.
9The Soviets had a history of recruiting female pilots. The USSR was the first nation to allow women to fly in combat during World War II. However, due to the extreme secrecy around the Soviet space program, many details were classified.
10Valentina Tereshkova logged more hours in space than all six American Mercury flights combined.
11Cape Canaveral was known as Cape Kennedy until 1973, when its original name was reinstated.
12Ad astra per aspera is commonly translated as “Through hardship to the stars.” A plaque honoring the Apollo 1 crew was later placed at Launch Complex 34, where Chaffee, White, and Grissom perished. It is inscribed with von Braun’s slightly altered translation, “A rough road leads to the stars.”
13NASA altered its naming system after Apollo 1. The sequence of Apollo missions skips from Apollo 1 to Apollo 4.
14Lovell’s iconic phrase is frequently misquoted as “Houston, we have a problem.”
15The card’s English translation reads, “sticking at nothing.”
