Customer Reviews

Kids to Space: A Space Traveler's Guide

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Full Disclosure: This reviewer also helped to write the book. I was asked to help Tom Matula with the Moon section. I receive no remuneration for either my contribution to the book or this review, other than an author's copy from the editor.

Published in 2006 by Apogee Books, it weighs in at 303 pages plus CD-ROM with all images and slideshow feature with music by Hawkwind and weblinks. A few minor factual errors, but nothing significant given the sheer volume of material. One is the footnote on the table for the question 'What is the Moon made of?'. It's actually from "The Pocket Guide to Lunar Mineralogy: How Moon Rocks and Earth Rocks are Related".

Hot off the presses, this amazing book was created by engaging thousands of schoolchildren in the U.S. and Canada to submit some 18,000 questions and thousands of drawings. These were then culled for duplicates and unintelligible questions, and the remaining 1,827 questions were then farmed out to scores of people engaged in humanity's space efforts. With 101 chapters, including introductions and indexes, the questions clearly ranged across a wide variety of topics.

The book sorts them into three general categories: Planning to go to Space, Visiting and Living in Space, and Exploring Space. Really it should be regarded as a comprehensively well written and illustrated space almanac for kids. Everything you could possibly want to know about traveling into space is covered, from hair & nails to ultraviolet rays. Woven throughout the chapters is a story of several youngsters preparing themselves for just such a trip.

What an absolutely beautiful and well-written book. It takes a while to read through, and I have to admit I learned a couple of things from the effort. What's intriguing is the sorts of things that kids had questions about. Ranked in order these were:

The Moon (114)
Spacecraft (97)
Health & Medical (60)
Planets (47)
Emergencies (45)
Space (44)
Communities (37)
Asteroids, Comets & Meteors (35)
Clothing (34)
Weightlessness (31)
Galaxy, Solar System & Universe (31)

That's a pretty telling list, and says a great deal about what this next generation's thoughts are about space. They want to go to the Moon, in space craft, while taking good care of themselves, and being cautious of emergencies as they explore the planets and asteroids and live in space in really hip clothes.

The pool of experts put together is quite humbling, eighty-three total. Buzz Aldrin is there, as is Eric Anderson (Space Adventures), Robert Bigelow (Bigelow Aerospace), Sir Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), Sir Arthur Clarke (Dean of Space), Brad Edwards (carbon nanotubes), David Gump (t/Space), Loretta Hidalgo (Yuri's Night), Carolyn Porco (Cassini PI), Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites), Dennis Tito (ISS tourist), Neil DeGrasse-Tyson (Hayden Planetarium NYC), and George Whitesides (National Space Society), as well as 15 astronauts to give some first-hand background.

The real success of this work lies in the participation of the 6,000 or so school kids from 83 U.S. and 1 Canadian school, as well as from 17 schools that submitted questions for the `Going to Space with Disabilities' chapter. (Quick, can anyone name all -7- senses?)

I think I was most impressed with the chapter on Health & Medicine. USAF Col. Dr. Richard S. Williams did an outstanding job of covering the topic in a no-nonsense fashion that really answered each question well. Other good sections were Dennis Tito's "Expectations" and Robert Bigelow's "Space Hotels". Trygve Magelssen did a really good job with "Resources", and the "Sports" questions were neat, and U.S. Space & Rocket Center did a great job answering them. Paintball on the Moon!

The book is lavishly illustrated with drawings done by the youngsters, one for each chapter. Some real concerns are expressed, and it's not just a happy-feely love-fest of pictures. Edvard Munch's "The Scream" is referenced in the drawing on the back cover. One young lady asserts that "Although we can expand and live in space it DOESN'T mean we should." There are also 40 full-color glossy pictures in the middle. Some of the pictures display an excellent amount of care in their preparation (like the young lady's from Nevada which opens the section on "Visiting & Living in Space"), and an awful lot of creativity. Interestingly, most of the space stations pictured were of the big rotating ring or ring/cylinder combination.

Everyone should immediately order one of these for their local school. Then another for the family. This kind of resource is the kind of rare treasure that doesn't come around very often.

It's very difficult for me to divorce myself from my pride of ownership (with Tom Matula) of the Moon chapter for a rating attempt. Attempting to ignore that particularly excellent chapter, I do have to look at the fact that there were a handful of factual errors, and some of the answers seemed to reflect more what the expert wanted to say as opposed to answering the question asked. These limitations really are few, because five errors in the answers to 1,800 questions is really an excellent record.

What has to be looked at is the context of what has been achieved by this project, which is a book that is probably going to be the definitive children's space reference for a while. I highly recommend the hardbound copy that I picked up, if only for some measure of durability.

6,000 kids, 1,800 questions, 1,000 illustrations, 101 schools, 101 chapters, 83 experts, and one heck of an editor.

It gets a Full Moon rating.

From an online review by Ken Murphy, an alumnus of International Space University, and co-chair of the 2007 NSS International Space Development Conference. His Moon book reviews, and this review with weblinks, can be found at outofthecradle.net

Lonnie Jones Schorer has written a book with a mission. A critical mission. Turning the next generation of kids--your kids and mine--into space-farers. Inspiring our kids to dream of vacationing in orbit, of kicking up dust on the moon, of living in places life has never gone, and of being the Johnny Appleseeds of the solar system. Schorer has written a book to turn today's kids into the generation that realizes Star Trek's dreams.

Moving into space is as vital as reducing carbon emissions. Our planet is so fragile that it has experienced 146 mass extinctions--all without smokestack industries and human beings. So taking life to as many nooks and crannies of the cosmos as we can is crucial to the survival of the plants, animals, and even the bacteria who are our cousins in the family of DNA.

Schorer has given kids a personal stake in the big jump to space. She's asked 6,000 students in the US and Canada to imagine planning a trip to the moon or to a space hotel, then to think of the questions whose answers they'd want before they packed their bags and prepared for the big trek, the adventure of their lives.

The students posed a total of 18,000 questions, questions Schorer took to 80 experts, some of the top experts in their field. The contributors she snagged for Kids to Space include Richard Branson, Arthur C. Clark, Buzz Aldrin, Robert Bigelow (who launched the first inflatable hotel prototype into orbit July 14, 2006), Burt Rutan (who won the X-Prize in October, 2004, for designing, building, and launching the first privately-financed human-piloted rocket into suborbital space, landing it safely, then launching and landing it a second time in a single week), Neil deGrasse Tyson (Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City), Norman Mineta (a Democrat who served as Secretary of Transportation for President George W. Bush), and Esther Dyson (one of the world's leading emerging-technology experts).

Then Schorer tied her questions and answers together with a storyline that you can read to your kids when they're young ...and with in-depth information you and your kids can dive into as your children grow older and more curious.

Want your kids to have high aspirations, some of the highest ever dreamed by humankind? Kids to Space: A Space Traveler's Guide is the book to fire space-fever in their minds.

Howard Bloom--author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and of Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From the Big Bang to the 21st Century

I have developed space science materials for children and I have reviewed such work by other scientists. What sets 'Kids to Space' apart from those fine efforts is the simple fact that the students, not the educators, set the agenda: kids wrote and illustrated the questions with the curiosity and imagination that comes so naturally to young people. It was fun and often very challenging to respond to those questions because they got quickly and simply to the fundamentals of many areas of the science and technology of space and space travel. 'Kids to Space' and its innovative approach are a fabulous and remarkably thorough resource for teachers, students, and anyone interested in outer space and the issues and intricacies surrounding its exploration.

Every parent, teacher and public speaker knows that young people ask the best and most challenging questions. Lonnie Schorer's excellent new book Kids to Space, A Space Traveler's Guide pairs the best of these questions with answers from a thoughtful panel of space experts. The result is a book that is great fun to read for both young readers and adults. I confess that thanks to these great questions I learned quite a bit about subjects in which I'm fairly well read.

The experts include such luminaries as astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Byron Lichtenberg and Rick Searfoss, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, author Sir Arthur Clarke and many others. These experts do not shy away from providing substantive and direct answers. For example, one of the areas of greatest interest to students was the Moon and how we will visit it and use its resources in the near future. A question about lunar pollution was answered with an excellent discussion of the fact that operations outside of planetary atmospheres and biospheres are fundamentally different from those where water and air exist. But the answer also discussed the strong economic and social forces that are likely to provide incentives for recycling in space operations.

It's rare to find a source of answers that are at once, both concise and comprehensive. Kids to Space is such a source and I believe that it will be a very valuable resource for students, teachers and anyone with an interest in public opinions about space.

The book contains a CD ROM featuring a presentation of kids space art and music by the Canadian group Hawkwind. Also provided on the disk is an excellent list of weblinks to additional resources.

The St. Louis Science Center is planning to create an exhibit based on this book for our visitors. These questions and answers provide an excellent and non-threatening way to introduce people of all ages to the possibilities and challenges of our future in space.

Gregg Maryniak
Director, J.S. McDonnell Planetarium
Vice President, Aerospace Sciences
St. Louis Science Center

Prompted by hundreds of probing questions from school-aged children from the United States and Canada, 'Kids to Space: A Space Traveler's Guide' is destined to become a 'must have' classroom guide and reference manual for science teachers and space enthusiasts alike.

The manuscript is imaginatively illustrated by the kids' own artwork. Their detailed questions, covering just about everything associated with spaceflight and space exploration, have been fielded by true notables in their respective technical fields -- the real 'rocket scientists' -- astronomers, astrophysicists, physicians, scientists, and, yes, even some astronauts.

Seldom, if ever has so much interesting and inspiring information about spaceflight and space exploration been packed into such a compelling, readable and useful volume. No doubt teachers and their students will thoroughly enjoy diving into this users' guide to spaceflight.

Kudos to the author, Lonnie Jones Schorer!

This is a beautiful book but most importantly, it demystifies the subject for children. It is comprehensive, clear, contains lovely illustrations by children, and offers an enormous amount of information in very manageable (bite size) portions. This is a must for any teacher who wants to bring this subject into the classroom in a way that students can understand. With our Space Shuttle missions in progress, it's the perfect teaching tool to bring both students and adults up to speed (possibly Mach 1?) with the space program.

As an elementary educator for 31 years, I give this book 5 stars! Children from America and Canada were asked to submit questions about their ideas of Space, Exploration, and Space Travel knowing that experts in these fields would answer their questions. Hundreds of answers and beautiful artwork from the children are included in the book. For the younger children, a story line with larger print begins each chapter. This book is for children of ALL ages and could be used as a wonderful resource for reports and research papers, too. I feel this book needs to get into the hands of this next generation who will hopefully, become our next astronauts, Moon and Mars explorers, and the engineers, mathematicians, and scientists who will get them there. This book can provide that needed inspiration and joy of discovery.