Customer Reviews

The Century of Space Science (v. 1&2)

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I own this handsome two-volume set, but I was very disappointed by many of the articles. It fails to achieve the quality that I would expect from an historical collection on this subject.

The best books on space have been written by professional historians and authors, who attempted to view the field with objectivity and a uniform style. The outdated but amazing _McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Space_ is one of the best examples, beautifully produced, and covering all of the aspects of technology, history and nationality.

The Century of Space Science is written by a collection of mostly European scientists, who each present a rather narrow, often self-serving and sometimes very inaccurate view of various fields. The Soviet space program is almost completely ignored, and American contributions come in second in the highly Euro-centric stance of these articles.

An article by a principal investigator on Pioneer Venus begins by saying that almost everything we know about the planet results from the PV mission. Absurd, given that Soviet missions *landed* on Venus ten times. It then goes on to state that Pioneer Venus was the first artificial satellite of Venus. In fact it was the third, and you have to wonder, how a professional in this field could not know anything about Venera-9 and Venera-10?

An article on rocket engines, written by a German firm, makes the false claim of inventing the staged-combustion engine in 1963 -- three years after the Soviet Molniya rocket had a staged-combustion engine in its fourth stage. These are typical examples of what I found all throughout this book.

'If a publishing house had mentioned to me that it proposed to publish a compendium of 100 essays that covered all of the important topics in space science, totalling nearly 2,000 pages and written by the world's leading space scientists, I would have expressed enthusiasm but great doubt that it could be done..... But I would have been quite wrong. Kluwer, the publishers of The Century of Space Science, found not just one but three well-known space scientists to edit the project, and these remarkable men did the job with aplomb.... The result is a truly unique publishing accomplishment: a splendid collection of authoritative reviews that transcends academic disciplines.' Paul Hodge Nature, VOL 421 January 23,2003