Customer Reviews

The Dream of Spaceflight: Essays on the Near Edge of Infinity

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The beautiful prose in Wyn Wachhorst's The Dream of Spaceflight : Essays on the Near Edge of Infinity, led me to a greater understanding of space exploration and invited me to meditate with the author on the deeper meanings waiting for us if we open ourselves to the mysteries of the universe. Reading this book reminded me of how I felt when I first read Chet Raymo's The Soul of the Night: that I was being taken on a journey to new places with a trustworthy guide. I love the way Wachhorst, like Raymo, looks at science through the lens of poetry. Throughout the essays in his book, whether he's writing about the history of spaceflight and the evolution of Western culture, philosophical concerns related to space exploration, or the workings of the human psyche, Wachhorst made me aware of how important it is not to lose the capacity for wonder and for the human race to keep dreaming of reaching the stars. As he focuses on what it means to explore other worlds, Wachhorst never loses sight of the inner, subjective meaning inherent in all our undertakings. The personal narrative that Wachhorst weaves through the book connects those inner and outer realities and celebrates a world that is infinite. These are essays I will return to often for their poetry, their intelligence, and their wisdom.

If every politician in Washington had read this book we would not only have saved the Pluto-Kuiper Express mission but might well be revitalizing our whole space effort in the direction of actual exploration. Wachhorst gets beyond the nuts and bolts and tired histories to the real meaning of spaceflight-what it feels like to dream the dream. My wife and I are avid readers, and this is simply the best non-fiction writing we have ever encountered.

I wish I could afford a full-page ad in the New York Times to tell the world about this book. It should be read not only by everyone committed to the exploration of space, but by anyone with the capacity to appreciate lyrical prose and profound insight. This is not just for space buffs, but for every person who has ever looked into the night sky and felt a visceral surge of wonder and a longing to know. I have to believe that if this book were made known to everyone in the English-speaking world, there would be literally millions who would feel it was one of the ten best books they had ever read. Pick it up and read just one page--any page in the book--and you'll be compelled to read the rest.

THE DREAM OF SPACEFLIGHT is a very sweet, romantic discussion of man's efforts to explore what's "out there." It provides a compelling, refreshing view of the Apollo missions (down to how many gallons of fuel it takes to move a rocket one inch closer to the moon), a wonderful telling of Kepler's life, and left me wishing America would once again try, in earnest, to get a man on Mars.

Wachhorst's exquisite book on the dream of spaceflight resonates with my own life as a history buff and a mathematical physicist who worked on space programs during the peak years. I recommend this book to any scientist, policymaker, or ordinary citizen seeking to understand the place the space program has had in the national psyche.

Half way through this book I found myself trying to gather the words to describe it. At one point I settled on simply quoting a poignant passage but I found the book brimming with them. This book should be read out loud and with passion. At first I was bored, hoping for another "Entering Space", what I found was much more profound. We don't lack the scientific knowledge or resources to make our home in space. (We could have had a man on Mars a decade ago.) What we've lost as a society is the childhood awe at the expanse and beauty of space and the adolescent arrogance to pursue it, not for political or scientific ambitions, but solely because it's there.

I have been a space buff ever since I got my first telescope for Christmas, 1968, and got to use it on Christmas eve 1968 and looked at the crater filled moon as Apollo 8 orbited the moon, what magic, a time long gone. So I can relate to Wyn Wachhorst as he narrates this journey through our coming of age in the cosmos, from Kepler, Goddard, and others, to the present, always writing in symbolic and poetic style, neat to say the least.

I particularly loved the chapter "Abandon In Place", anyone well versed in space lore will instantly know what that term means, but in this chapter Wachhorst laments in great detail the lack of vision people in our society exhibit, and it's causes. Ask yourself this: how many people do you know, personally, that appreciate anything beyond normal everyday occurances, beyond the mundane, beyond the simple utility of everyday life and what is on television tonight, and if you are like me you will be able to think of perhaps one or two people only. This is a topic that Wachhorst discusses extensively and he writes that we need to have a sense of wonder, and the need to explore, and the craving for personal transcendence at the leading edge of evolution, in order to thrive as a species.

In this book you will read about the lives of several visionary people, and I think the tribute to Carl Sagan was the best anyone could ever write about another person. This volume is a jewel that is rarely encountered in the literary world, a joy to read.

This is definitely one of the best books that I have read within years. I've read it a few times now and some passages - on the paintings of Chesley Bonestell (the Caspar David Friedrich of alien landscapes), which match the serenity and sublime poetics of those paintings, on Alexei Leonov's and Ed White's first spacewalks, on the lift off of the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket (gives me tears in my eyes, the same as if I see it on DVD), on Percival Lowell, on the fantasy worlds of Astounding Science Fiction and Startling Stories, to mention only a few - are so great! They give you a kind of experience which normally only good poetry can give you. I read these passages again and again, they are aesthetically addictive! It is impossible to convey the sublime poetic quality of Wachhorst's prose. Really, every sentence in this book is a gem by itself. There is no other book, not even the books of Carl Sagan, that convey that sense of wonder (what the old Greeks called thaumazein) that propels us human beings toward space travel so intensely as this book does. It's not only poetry of course, it's also a very informative book (Wachhorst is a historian), but this book teaches you how important the mastery of language is to get a message through. It is also a very philosophical book, not in the analytical sense but more in an existentialist way. You'll learn a lot about the meaning of human transcendence while reading Wachhorst's reflections and meditations on our ultimately incomprehensible and utterly absurd condition as lonely intelligences stuck on a small piece of rock somewhere in the infinite vastness of the cosmos. We are, Wachhorst writes at some point, 'the ballroom innocents of Spaceship Earth - frail seed of life itself, afloat for an instant on the surface of forever'. This wonderful, exceptionally well written book is a must read for everyone, not only space enthousiasts. I dare to say that it is essential reading. How great that this book exists!!!

These essays on science and technology provide four reflections on spaceflight and its historical meaning, examining the romance and science of space events and recalling the signature events which mark space achievements. An excellent set of literary reflections on the importance of space discoveries on the human psyche.

Wyn Wachhorst has written some beautiful essays with the core theme of spaceflight and has collected them in his book The Dream Of Spaceflight. The essays aren't perfect. Wachhorst often takes disparate insights from others and tries to connect them, when leaving them to contrast with each other would have been fine. He is critical of the postmodern [which is fine by me], but he often uses terms in fuzzy and metaphorical ways reminiscent of many postmodern authors. But ultimately the purpose of any good essay is to get the reader to think and Wachhorst succeeded with this reader admirably. The deep and wonderful insights in the essays [e.g. The whole person must have both the humility to nurture the Earth and the pride to go to Mars.] come often enough to recommend the book with a four star rating.