Conquest of the moon, (Hardcover)

~ Wernher Von Braun (Author), Fred L. Whipple (Author), Willy Ley (Author), Cornelius Ryan (Editor), Chesley Bonestell (Illustrator), Fred Freeman (Illustrator), Rolf Klep (Illustrator)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 126 pages
• Publisher: Viking Press; 1St Edition edition (1953)
• ASIN: B0007DVW7A
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #830,420 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Vision of Lunar Exploration, April 19, 2007

By	Y. Juhani Westman "armchair astronaut" (Helsinki, Finland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hor do you explore a New World? Well, in the middle of the 20:th Century the mode of exploring on the Earth, for example Antarctica, consisted of massive teams of specialists with assorted technical support teams. Hands-on was another catchword. Thus, to do a first-look exploration on the Moon it could be argued that a team of fifty - emphatically men! - doing a six weeks field trip to our natural satellite in three ships like another Columbus, could be considered rather modest but, with good planning, reasonably adequate for a first try!
This book is one of the classics, the second in fact, to emerge from the series of articles on Space Exploration in the Collier's Magazine. The transportation bit was concieved by German V2-rocket developer Wernher von Braun, Fred L Whipple being the expert on the science to be done on the Moon and Willy Ley the master popularizer as well as a rocketry expert in his own right. The narrative artwork by Chesley Bonestell and Fred Freeman completed the sense of "thus will it be".
It did not, of course. Some of the transportation planning was clearly unrealistic. Imagine the Space Shuttle of today being readied from landing to a new ascent in ten days! In other parts the "mission architecture", as we would term the flight plans today, were all but optimized. But the vision was there, then, in the years 1952-53. Not all of the vision made it into reality during Apollo, but the 12 men who made it probably made more results with the so much lesser amounts of resources, thanks to the fact that the experts could participate from the Mission Control back rooms in Houston.
There are some beautiful "insiders". Look, for instance, at the picturing of the Spherical Cabine of a Moonship. In the Captains Seat you see von Braun himself, with his hair on end. Perusing the course of the ship over the navigation table you see Willy Ley and Fred Whipple, and who is that gent sipping coffee at the mess table? Cornelius Ryan, of course, the Collier's Editor of the series.
Enjoy the Grand Vision, while awaiting the new reality of the Lunar crafts Orion, launchers Ares I andd V, and Lunar Lander Artemis.