Kosmonauti NULA aneb Ti, co nedoletěli... – Kužel Stanislav (2017)

This Czech-language book by a well-known journalist, former editor and Czech Radio collaborator explores the history of spaceflight and its lesser-known facts. It presents the stories of the men who endured a long and arduous journey that could have culminated in Yuri Gagarin calling “Poyekhali” from the nose of the Vostok rocket on 12 April 1961. These were heroes whose stories did not appear in newspapers or television reports and whose names often remained deliberately hidden from the world. They tested on themselves everything that could, and even could not, happen in orbit, yet their journeys did not always end with the longed-for view of Earth. Most did not become embittered, although their so-called status as “research subjects” cost them part of their lives, and some their entire lives. The United States also had men who were denied a path into space. Some test pilots who crossed the boundary of space in rocket aircraft received the proud title of astronaut only many years later, in some cases posthumously. Others died during training or ruined their health in centrifuges and pressure chambers, in deserts and ocean waves. In Russia they are known as “Cosmonauts Zero”, and without them, the way into space might not have been opened even today.