Asif Azam Siddiqi
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Asif Azam Siddiqi is a Bangladeshi-American space historian. He currently serves as an assistant professor of history at Fordham University.[1] He has written several books on the space race between the U.S. and the USSR during the Cold War. Among them are The Soviet Space Race with Apollo, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge and Challenge to Apollo: the Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974. Challenge to Apollo is widely considered to be the best English-language history of the Soviet space program in print and was identified by the Wall Street Journal as "one of the five best books" on space history.[2] [3]
Siddiqi's major contribution to space history scholarship has been to apply academic training, theory, and methodology to the study of Soviet space history. Earlier works on Soviet space history by writers such as Jim Oberg and Phillip Clark were largely based upon Soviet press releases and limited technical data such as orbital parameters. Siddiqi utilized newly available archival materials, published works such as memoirs, and other sources and essentially pioneered Soviet space history scholarship. Even current Russian-based space history tends to rely heavily upon memoirs and as a result Siddiqi is acknowledged by Russian space officials as one of the few people conducting original archival research on the subject worldwide.
Siddiqi was the first western scholar to recognize that history of the Soviet decision to launch Sputnik in October 1957 was much more complex than had previously been reported. He noted that Sputnik was actually a far simpler spacecraft than the Soviets had originally planned to launch. The more complex satellite took longer to design and build than the Soviet leadership wanted, posing the risk that the Americans would launch a satellite into orbit first. As a result, the Soviet space leadership chose to develop a small and simple satellite that could be built in a short period of time and rushed to launch, thus scoring a major propaganda coup over the United States.
Siddiqi's other books are Rockets and People and Deep Space Chronicle: a chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes, 1958-2000. He was the 1997 recipient of the Robert H. Goddard Historical Essay Award sponsored by the National Space Club.[4] He is the son of Dr. Hafiz GA Siddiqi, vice-chancellor of North South University in Dhaka.
Published works:
Authored books
Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge (University Press of Florida, 2003)
The Soviet Space Race with Apollo (University Press of Florida, 2003)
Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974 (NASA History Office, 2000)
Edited books
Rockets and People (NASA History Office, 2005) and
Rockets and People, Vol. 2: Creating a Rocket Industry (NASA History Office, 2006)
Articles
“Imagining the Cosmos: Utopians, Mystics, and the Popular Culture of Spaceflight in Revolutionary Russia.” In Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 23 (Intelligentsia Science: The Russian Century, 1860-1960), eds. Michael D. Gordin, Karl Hall, and Alexei B. Kojevnikov (forthcoming).
“Making Spaceflight Modern: A Cultural History of the World’s First Space Advocacy Group.” In The Societal Impact of Spaceflight, eds. Stephen J. Dick and Roger D. Launius (Washington, DC: NASA History Division, 2008), pp. 513-537.
“American Space History: Legacies, Questions, and Opportunities for Further Research.” In Critical Issues in Space History, eds. Stephen J. Dick and Roger D. Launius (Washington, DC: NASA History Division, 2006), pp. 433-80.
«Наука за стенами академии: К. Э. Циолковский и его альтернативная сеть неформальной научной коммуникации», Вопросы истории естествознания и техники no. 4 (2005): 137-54. [“Science Outside the Academy: K. E. Tsiolkovskii and His Alternative Discursive Networks,” Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki no. 4 (2005): 137-54.]
“Privatising Memory: The Soviet Space Programme Through Museums and Memoirs.“ In Showcasing Space: Artefacts Series: Studies in the History of Science and Technology, eds. Martin Collins and Douglas Millard (London: The Science Museum, 2005), pp. 98-115.
“Russians in Germany: Founding the Postwar Missile Programme,” Europe-Asia Studies 56, no. 8 (2004): 1131-56.
“Deep Impact: Robert Goddard and the Soviet ‘Space Fad’ of the 1920s,” History and Technology 20, no. 2 (2004): 97-113.
“The Rockets’ Red Glare: Technology, Conflict, and Terror in the Soviet Union,” Technology and Culture 44 no. 3 (2003): 470-501.
“Korolev, Sputnik, and the International Geophysical Year.” In Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite, ed. Roger D. Launius, John M. Logsdon, and Robert W. Smith (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), pp. 43-72.
“Iskusstvennyy sputnik zemli: The launch of the world’s first artificial satellite 50 years ago,” Spaceflight 49 (November 2007): 426-447.
“The Sputnik Decision Revisited,” Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 14 no. 4 (2007): 20-28.
“The Man Behind the Curtain,” Air & Space (Smithsonian) 22 no. 5 (October/November 2007): 58-63.
«Королев––взгляд с Запада», Новости космонавтики no. 8 (2007): 58-59. [“Korolev—A View from the West,” News of Cosmonautics no. 8 (2007): 58-59.]
“Russia’s Long Love Affair with Space,” Air & Space (Smithsonian) 22 no. 3 (August 2007): 35-39.
“A Secret Uncovered: The Soviet Decision to Land Cosmonauts on the Moon,” Spaceflight 46 (2004): 205-13. (With Dwayne A. Day), “The Moon in the Crosshairs: CIA Intelligence on the Soviet Manned Lunar Programme,” Spaceflight 45 (2003): 466-75 and Spaceflight 46 (2004): 112-25.
“Soyuz Variants—A 40 Year History,” Spaceflight 45 (2003): 118-21.
“Mutual Influences: U.S.S.R.-U.S. Interactions During the Space Race.” In Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Forty Years of U.S. Human Spaceflight Symposium, ed. Stephen J. Garber (Washington: NASA, 2002), pp. 66-72.
“The Almaz Space Station Complex: A History, 1964-1992,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 54 (2001): 389-416 and 55 (2002): 35-67.
“Rocket Engines from the Glushko Design Bureau, 1945-2000,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 54 (2001): 311-34.
(With B. Hendrickx and T. Varfolomeyev), “The Tough Road Travelled: A New Look at the Second Generation Luna Probes,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 53 (2000): 319-56.
“The Soviet Fractional Orbiting Bombardment System (FOBS): A Short Technical History,” Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 7 (Spring 2000): 22-32.
“Staring at the Sea: The Soviet RORSAT and EORSAT Programmes,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 52 (1999): 397-416.
"Soyuz-1 Revisited: From Myth to Reality," Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly 6 (1998):5-16.
"First to the Moon," Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 51: (1998): 231-38.
"The Decision To Go to the Moon: The View From the Soviet Union," Spaceflight 40 (1998): 177-80 and 40 (1998): 227-30.
"Cold War in Space: A Look Back at the Soviet Union," Spaceflight 40 (1998): 63-68.
"Before Sputnik: Early Satellite Studies in the Soviet Union 1947-1957," Spaceflight 39 (1997): 334-37 and 39 (1997): 389-92.
"Soviet Design Bureaux," Spaceflight 39 (1997): 277-80.
"The Soviet Co-Orbital Anti-Satellite System: A Synopsis," Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 50 (1997): 225-40.
"Cancelled Missions in the Voskhod Programme," Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 50 (1997): 25-32.
" 'There It is!'," Quest 5, no. 3 (1996): 38-41.
"The Triumph and Tragedy of Salyut 1," Quest 5, no. 3 (1996): 26-33.
"Major Launch Failures in the Early Soviet Space Programme," Spaceflight 37 (1995): 393-94.
"Mourning Star: The Nedelin Disaster," Quest 3, no. 4 (1994): 38-47.
"Soviet Space Programme—Organisational Structure in the 1960s," Spaceflight 36 (1994): 283-86 and 36 (1994): 317-20.
