Customer Reviews

Launch Vehicles Pocket Space Guide: Heritage of the Space Race (Pocket Space Guides)

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

 

 

Rockets have been around as launch vehicles since the late 1940's. This book tells the simple story of the world's launchers from Russia's Sputnik to China's Long March. This easy to read and understand book is a great primer on the subject.
Writer Michael Lennick has tackled a large subject and made it fun.
The photography alone makes this a feast for the eyes. Some that have rarely been seen outside of their native country.
Great for model makers!

This is a great quick reference for spaceflight past and present history. I use it when I'm reading a book about rockets and have a quick question. The book tells what the rockets are, when these craft were used, and how they were used to launch both man and machine into space. It has nice color pictures, as well as quick specs to convey to the reader the magnitude and scale of the power and size of these vehicles. I really like the way that the guide gives you side by side pictures of each country and/or space agencies entire menu of vehicles. You are also provided with quick specs that will point out the major differences between each them. The price is right, and I recommend it be made a part of your book shelf.

Its a bit cryptic ... the genealogy of each rocket is left for you to figure out ... i.e. the US rockets ... which one is a Lockheed design ? .. which is Boeing ? the other burning question is "how big are these rockets relative to each other ?" ... a simple page with line drawings of each rocket side x side to see their relative size could have replaced a lot of unnecessary text.
Its a good value book if you just want to skip across the surface. I'm a bit disappointed but its ok as a quick reference.

This is a surprising amount of information in such a small format. Anyone interested in rockets will find this to be a valuable reference for all the specifications (lengths, widths
etc.) that are so hard to find, as well as brief histories of space launch vehicles of today and yesterday. There are also
plenty of illustrations.

This was an interesting and informative book for our whole family. Very easy to read, hard to put down! Glad to see this is part of a series!

Beautifully researched and well presented. A fascinating look at the subject.

This book is a bit of a disappointment. Although the second half of the book is a photographic section of launch vehicles and has some illustrative value, the first part, which should have been a technical description with illustrations/drawings is incomplete as many launch vehicles are not covered (focus is on U.S. manned launch vehicles mainly- and the shuttle is not described). I guess there is too much information that needs to be included but not enough space in a 100-page booklet. A Launch Vehicles space guide should have come in a two-set package or in a larger book.