Paul Dickson, who has written more than sixty nonfiction books, covered the Apollo spaceflight program as a reporter leading up to the 1969 moon landing. Among his other works are A Dictionary of the Space Age and Out of This World: American Space Photography.
 

Paul Dickson chronicles the dramatic events and developments leading up to and resulting from the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik.
 

Introduction
1. Sputnik Night
2. Gravity Fighters
3. Vengeance Rocket
4. An Open Sky
5. The Birth of Sputnik
6. Red Monday
7. Dog Days
8. American Birds
9. Ike Scores
10. Sputnik’s Legacy
Epilogue
Appendix: Sputnik’s Long, Lexical Orbit
Author’s Note, Acknowledgments, and Dedication
Notes
Bibliography
Index