Review:Apollo the Second Chapter (4/5) The pocket series from Apogee gets better and better. Project Apollo: Exploring the Moon, Vol. 2 is a concise summary of the later Apollo missions that were truly meaningful expeditions. When scientists realized Apollo 17 would end the moon program they started cramming science into every mission. The LRV allowed the moonwalkers to become lunar explorers, traveling miles around each landing site. Most of the photographs included the book are well known, but they provide visual highlights to each mission. Who can forget Young's jumping salute and Cernan's John Wayne stance? This is America at its finest.
Review:Solid basic info on Apollo (5/5) This book is a great start to get to know what the Apollo Moon Program was all about. It's info-packed with drawings/illustrations and photographs. It's a solid introduction to Apogee Books' NASA Mission Reports series by Robert Godwin. This Pocket Space Guide, written by the same author, is of the same high-quality standard than the NASA Mission Reports. Great job.
Review:So much GREAT Apollo stuff! (5/5) Not only is this Pocket Guide jammed with information, it's also got a great collection of Apollo photographs, beautifully reproduced. I'm really knocked out by the black and white ones Rob Godwin has colorized, like the panorama of Dave Scott working at the rover on the slopes of Hadley Delta peak. No Apollo fan should miss this book!
-- Andrew Chaikin, author of "A Man on the Moon"
Review:Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006 (5/5) A very comprehensive account of manned space flight. The book contains a time period overview of space travel plus a detailed account of each flight. Enjoyable reading. A must-have for all space buffs!
Review:Who did what - and When? (5/5) This one is big as a medium size telephone directory - around 820 pages - but it has to be. Chronicling some 250 space flight since April 12, 1961 up to September 29, 2006, and the participants from Yuri Gagarin to Anousheh Ansari, in lucid prose and memory-stirring photographs, this is a worthy follow-up of the Tim Furniss earlier chronicling of the first 103 space flights. That milestone was passed in April 1983. We tend to equal "space flight" with "flights to Earth Orbit" or "Flight to the Moon", but suborbital flight to more than 80 kilometres - 13 in the X-15 rocket plane and 3 in the comercial "Spaceship One" are included as official flights that reached space. Aborts during launches are also included, as are the incredibly sad listings of the crew of STS 51-L, where Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe attained only 1 minute of spaceflight experience, before that ascent was so cruelly - and unnecessarily - terminated.
The Authors have visely chosen to present all the numerical data in both metric and imperial measurement. If I have to search for something missing, I would wish for an alphabetic index of persons, who participated in which flight style, but then the size of this volume, already in that class which seriously hampers the compulsory bed-reader, clearly would have grown quite out of hand. Let us be thankful for the mass of facts we already have got here.
For the veteran armchair astronaut this volume brings back a lot of memories, and still succeeds in serving up a plethora of data that has slipped the memory over those 45 years. For the young reader, this presents the scope of Mankinds first forays off our planetary shores and trips to the offshore island of the Moon. It's an incredible history after all, and it's all here.
Review:A very great book (5/5) I was really impressed by the Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006.
Simply the best !!! A book with many details of each manned space mission since the Gagarin's flight. Highly recommended. More than 820 pages rich with any type of information.
Review:The first of the Apollo 11 series and it is great (5/5) This book, the first in a series of three volumes, was released to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, and contains a great deal of information about the first landing on the moon. This book contains the press kit, pre and post mission reports and the transcript with pictures of the first post-mission press conference. The book also contains a compact disc (CD) with contains all of the photographs taken by the crew during the mission, plus two NASA produced mini-movies. This mission was commanded by Neil Armstrong who was accompanied to the surface by Buzz Aldrin with Michael Collins as the Command Module pilot.
Like many of the other volumes in this NASA Mission Report series, the book opens with the usual NASA mission press kit. In addition to the customary background information, the press kit focuses on the all aspects of the mission from the training phases, through launch, the lunar landing, the first moon walk and splashdown. There is a wealth of information on all the companies, important NASA personnel and scientific investigators who contributed to the success of this mission.
The next section contains the Pre-Flight Mission Operations Report, an internal NASA report, which presents a basic overview of the planned activities of the mission, including the EVA timelines. It is interesting to note that the format of these timelines is still used today to plan EVAs for the space station assembly. The next section presents the Post-Launch Mission Operations Report and describes the deviations from planned activities and the mission problems.
The final section is a transcript with pictures of the first post-mission press conference. In this hour and half press conference, the crew briefly and sometimes technically described their adventure to the moon, on the moon and then back to Earth. Afterwards, they answer questions from the audience who are primarily members of the press. While some of the discussions are quite technical, other portions of the press conference discuss the meaning of the first moon landing
The book also includes a compact disc (CD) with contains all of the photographs taken by the crew during the mission, plus two NASA produced mini-movies. The scans appear to be high resolution scans and the color photographs is quite vivid.
Some general information that might be useful.
1) These reports are just scanned-in documents from previously released NASA press kits, etc., In order to preserve the spirit of the original reports, all typographical and grammatical errors have NOT been fixed.
2) Proceeds from the book goes to "The Watch" an asteroid impact research project of the Space Frontier Foundation. In other words, Apogee Books is making very little off the sale of US government produced books.
3) Many people have asked why the post mission reports are not included. Since NASA has published many books with hundred of pages (The NASA SP series), and the data from these missions is still being analyzed, it would be impossible to do.
Review:Apollo 11 Mission Reports - Volume 1 (5/5) This is the first of 3 Mission Report volumes for Apollo 11 from Apogee Books. It is a priceless collection of mission reports, press kits and interviews from both before and after the historic flight. It also includes a CD ROM. All reports are reproduced with great care and give the reader an impression of what it must have been like to receive these items when they were first released by NASA in 1969 (although some were declassified a few years later). Apogee Books should be applauded for their efforts to preserve these great documents for present and future generations.
Review:Great Presentation of Apollo 11! (5/5) This 3 volume series on Apollo 11 is a treasure of information on this historic flight of the Apollo Program. The CDs are a wonderful addition with incredible resources for use in the classroom. As a high school science teacher, it is wonderful to have these great resources!
Review:A Detailed Account of what the Astronauts Did on the Moon (4/5) In the last decade no one has been more productive than British writer David M. Harland at turning out histories of spaceflight written for a popular audience. All have similar features, a mastery of the secondary literature, especially that available through the NASA History Series, a digestion of a wealth of scientific and technical information, and an engaging writing style that focuses on narrative rather than analysis. "Exploring the Moon: The Apollo Expeditions" is very much in sync with Harland's earlier works and serves as a useful introduction to the subject. Not a scholarly work--there are no footnotes--but it does have an extensive bibliography. His emphasis in this book is on the work of the six crews of astronauts that landed on the Moon, although there is an opening chapter on the robotic precursors and concluding chapters on Apollo in context and exploration of the Moon in the 1990s.
The heart of this book are the six chapters dealing with the lunar surface activities of Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. Harland expends the majority of the books space on the last three of this, and appropriately so because they represented the most significant scientific return of the program. NASA took a building block approach to exploration, something that seems obviously rational now but was not so well accepted at the time, with time on the surface and complexity of the mission advancing with every flight. The last three missions, of course, were extraordinary in collecting superb scientific data about the Moon, its origins, and the evolution of the solar system. Collectively, experiments carried out as a result of Apollo yielded more than 10,000 scientific papers and a major reinterpretation of the origins and evolution of the Moon.
"Exploring the Moon: The Apollo Expeditions" is a solid discussion, if uninspired history of lunar surface activity. Readers should read it in conjunction with two other major sources. The first is NASA's official history of the Apollo lunar surface activities entitled "Where No Man Has Gone Before: A History of Apollo Lunar Exploration Missions," by W. David Compton (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration SP-4214, 1989). Is conveniently available on-line for those who do not need a physical copy at http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4214/cover.html. Second, anyone who hopes to understand these missions must read the "Apollo Lunar Surface Journal," the brainchild of Eric Jones. Jones has placed on-line more detailed information about the astronauts on the lunar surface than anyone previously. This is available for all to review at http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/.
Review:A MUST FOR THOSE INTO SOLAR SYSTEM EXPLORATION (5/5) David Harland's book is one of the finest I have ever seen on the Apollo program or on Solar System exploration in general. Getting beyond the techincal aspects of spaceflight, the spacecraft or the astronauts' personalities which have been done by other authors, this book brings out the excitement of exploration and the discovery of the unknown that the Apollo astronauts participated in. Many people have been exposed to a taste of this in the episode about Apollo 15 in Tom Hanks' excellent television series "From the Earth to the Moon" which showed how, under excellent teachers, the astronauts, coming from a background of engineering and aeronautics, became true scientists and explorers.
It is true that a lot of geological concepts are thrown at the reader from the beginning and those (like myself) who have no previous background in geology might be intimidated but I find that a careful reading of the excellent glossary contained in the book should give enough background to make the science generally accessible. Harland makes clear why the various landing sites were chosen and what the geological issues were that were to be investigated. Traverse maps showing the various geological features to be explored are included for each mission. The many photographs presented illustrate the main discoveries and their significance. Of special note are the panoramas personally assembled by Harland (which are also available on the internet's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal) which give a stunning view of the Lunar environment as the astronauts saw it.
Finally, I strongly urge someone who finds himself becoming more interested in the subject of Lunar geology to also read Don Wilhelm's "To a Rocky Moon" which presents the historical development of our ideas about the Moon up through the famous Kona Conference in 1984 which determined that the Moon was probably created due to a giant body impacting with the fledgling Earth and also Paul Spudis' "The Once and Future Moon" which gives a summary of our state of knowledge up to the mid-1990's and directions for future exploration.
Review:Apollo - telling it like it was (5/5) At last,a book about the Apollo missions that does not dwell on Buzz's drinking, one-small-steps or the "unfolding human near-tragedy" that was Apollo 13. These are all great topics but they have been done to death. What Harland has done is chronicle the real reason - well, it later became the real reason - that Nasa went to the Moon. Once the euphoria ofbeating the Russians had worn off, six missions were sent to explore the surface of another planet. One failed, but the 10 men who followed in Aldrin's and Armstrong's footsteps managed to revolutionise our knowledge about the big white disc in the sky. Most of what they did was geology - so there are plenty of rocks here. If you don't know your pyroxenes from your olivines you might struggle a bit, but there is a helpful glossary. You are struck by just how damn hard these men worked in the precious hours and days they had on the lunar surface. there is human drama in this book, but it is in the imagined sweat and tears that must have been exuded to get these results. Finally, you are left reeling by the tragedy of "what might have been". Apollos 18-thru-20 were cancelled, and the Saturn 5s that were to carry further lunar missions now sit rusting in a Nasa carpark. As Harland points out, "they got bored with exploring another planet".
If you are interested in the Moon, or simply in why humanity goes into space, read this book.
Review:Wonderful and Exciting Spaceflight Photographs (5/5) The Association of Space Explorers is a unique group of individuals whose only requirement for membership is that one has to have journeyed into space. The goal of the ASE is to bring the excitement and wonder of space exploration to the general public. This book, "The Greatest Adventure" is their second book dedicated to this ideal, and is an excellent companion to their first book, "The Home Planet."
This coffee table book presents some of the best photographs taken of the Earth and a few of the Moon by both astronauts and cosmonauts, from the early days of the space race till the mid-1990's when this book was published. Due to the coffee table format of the book, the high resolution, color photographs are extremely impressive. Accompanying these wonderful photographs is a small piece describing each astronaut's voyage and impression of being in space which includes the entire range of astronauts, from commanders, pilots and mission specialists.
New printings of this book are common, so if it is listed as not being in print, check back frequently, because a new print might be out soon.
Review:ONE OF BEST ALL-TIME BOOKS DONE ON APOLLO/MOON (5/5) Ive read over200 books about Project Apollo to the Moon, and I have to rate this book as one of the best ever on moon landings, and all involved with this miraculous adventure of mankind! The book tells just about everything, covers it all about the missions and has many good excerpts from all the great astronauts from past to present! This is one of the few Apollo/Moon books that deserves an extra special place on anyones coffee table!This book deserves not to be merely looked at, but can be read many times over! I do not own it yet, but have read it twice, and cant wait to purchase it! Ed Gibson and The Association Of Space Explorers have done a wonderful job on this fantastic book of just what the title implies: Going to The Moon was in fact, and still is mankinds greatest adventure to this day, and probably will be for many years to come yet!
Review:Could not put it down! (5/5) This is one of the best books I have ever read. Have all of Shane Johnson's books now. Superb!
Review:Christian hard-core SF - not! (3/5) "Ice" begins with all the trappings of a first-rate contemporary "hard core" science fiction novel. The technical details, skilfully woven through a nail-biting plot make it a page turner, apparently of the stature of a Michael Crichton book. Alas, it meanders off into lengthy passages of religious introspection, and plot-breaks based on snap-of-the-fingers magic. The basic story idea is an intriging one, and for that the author is to be congratulated. Unfortunately, his personal religious passion overrides his duty to entertain his reader rather than preach at him/her. Sadly the last pages collapse the story entirely - the reader ploughs through the Afterword just to see if there is anything else there, but there is not. If the reader shares the author's uncompromising approach to Christian faith it might work, but the classic Apollo novel has yet to be written.
Review:Another great What If Novel (4/5) I love these novels that consider the "What If." And I am also fond of those authors that will take a chance on including Christian doctrine in them such as D. Shane Burton and Douglas Hirt. I would not even be offended if a Hindu or Islamic author wrote Sci-Fi and included their doctrine. They show lots of guts. The novel was an enjoyable read and kept me interested from the go.
Review:Best Book on Early Soviet Space Flight (5/5) The Rocket Men is a must read, along with the authors' Soyuz and David Harland's Mir, for anyone wanting to know about the Soviet space program. When it happened, all we knew about was what Soviet propaganda told us. Now that records are available, people are available to talk, we have a more complete story of those days. The book also debunks or verifies different myths from those days on disappearing astronauts and astronaut deaths and other aspects of the Soviet program.
Review:Excellent - High Recommended (5/5) Over the past few years Spring-Praxis has begun publishing high quality books about various aspects of space exploration, ranging from robotic missions to human exploration. This book is latest entry in series and continues the tradition of providing high caliber books. This time, the book focuses on the development of the Russian space program and the early flights (both men and women). While the book covers all the usual Russian firsts, like the first man and women crew into space and the first EVA, there are also a lot of other firsts, like the first civilians into space, which are covered as well. This truly an excellent book and presents a lot new information in a relatively non-technical way.
The book is divided into four main sections. The first section deals with the early Russian space pioneers, like Tsiolkovsky, and the development of the ballooning programs. The next section, which is the largest section, focuses on the Korolyov (The Chief Designer) and the development of the early Russian space program. The third section covers the early human space flight missions and the final section examines the unmanned vehicles that followed. Occasionally a few paragraphs about the US program are presented, to allow the reader to better gauge the Russian progress.
The first section of the book examines the early space flight theories of Tsiolkovsky and the early Russian pioneering efforts in stratospheric ballooning with the goal of trying to set a new manned altitude record. Two important benefits that came about due to these efforts were the development of pressurized suits for low altitudes and the understanding of parachuting fundamentals and parachutes clubs, which were ultimately applied, to the Russian space program.
The next section covers the Russian space program after World War II and the use captured German hardware to begin a space program. From these initial test flights, the Russian were able to begin development their ballistic missiles. The books presents the progression of the Russian missile program from the German V-2 through the Russian R-7, and it is easy to see that the Russian launch vehicles are direct descendants of the German launch vehicles.
The main section of the book focuses on the development of the early Russian space program, both manned and unmanned and contains a lot of information about the chief designer, Sergie Korolyov. The section of the books cover the construction of the Baikonur launch facility, the artificial satellite program, the development of the Vostok capsule, crew training, crew selection and loads of other stuff. I found the parts about the selection and construction of the Baikonur launch facility extremely fascinating. While it was in part chosen for its remoteness, it was also chosen that in the event of an abort, the launch vehicle could come down Russia and in relatively unpopulated areas of Russia. The construction crews faced a lot of hardships and death, but eventually after several years of hardships, the facility was completed. Also included in this section are detailed descriptions of the crew selection and training and ultimately their flights into Earth orbit. It is impressive to see than the Russian cosmonaut program paralleled the US effort and in many cases surpassed NASA. Specifically, the choice of women and civilians for spaceflight happened years before NASA even considered doing so. While some of the motivation behind these efforts may have political, these efforts were nevertheless carried on with success.
The final section of the book covers the unmanned flight since the Vostok and Voskhod missions. It was extremely interesting to note that many of the unmanned Earth orbiting Russian satellites even up to the most recent launches are based significantly on these early designs.
This is one of the best books I've read on the early Russian space effort with the only possible exception being Jim Oberg's Red Star in Orbit. It covers all the aspects of the development of the Russian space program and present a lot new information. Highly recommended!!!!!
Review:Good Book (4/5) This book has been helpful in getting my little astronaut to learn his letters. Before reading this he had no interest whatsoever. Now he can see how letters are used by astronauts all the time.
Review:Not your usual cute animal story, but a great addition to any juvenile nonfiction section! (5/5) Not your usual cute animal story, Ham the Astrochimp would make a great read-aloud introduction to biography, astronauts, or even exploration in an early elementary classroom. This well-written book presents the life and achievements of the U.S.'s first intelligent being to travel in space. While the central, large font text doesn't go into detail about why or how Ham was chosen and trained for the Mercury flights, there are smaller font sidebards that ellucidate this and give the reader many facts about our early space program. The illustrations are meticulous and engaging, as might be expected from a professor of graphic design and illustration. The only thing missing is a bibliography/source notes.
