“The first victim of space” - under this headline, on May 19, 1930, Berlin newspapers reported the death of the brilliant designer Max Vallier, mortally wounded while testing a new rocket engine. Since then, the number of rocket disasters has numbered many hundreds - from the unsuccessful launches of the V-7 and the first intercontinental rocket R-7 to the accident of the American Avangard satellite; from the death of the commander-in-chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, Marshal Nedelin, and 125 other people in the explosion of the R-16 to the fire on Apollo 1, in which three astronauts burned alive; from equipment failures that cost the lives of Vladimir Komarov and the Soyuz-11 crew, to the disasters of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles... This book collects and systematizes data on all accidents, accidents and catastrophes of the space era, on countless thorns on the way to the stars, about the huge price that had to be paid for a breakthrough into the future.