The Wrong Stuff

In The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned John Strausbaugh offers a vivid, revisionist history of the Soviet space effort, arguing that bureaucratic secrecy, political pressure, technological shortcuts, and personality clashes produced as many disasters as breakthroughs. Drawing on archives, memoirs, and dramatic program failures, he brings to life the engineers, cosmonauts, and officials whose decisions were shaped by the imperative to project power and ideology rather than to ensure safety and sustainable design. The result is a sharply observed account that punctures Cold War myths, explains how repeated cover ups and mismanagement undermined Soviet achievements, and explores the human and institutional costs of a space race driven more by image than engineering.