Customer Reviews

National Geographic Encyclopedia of Space

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

 

 

While I'm not very impressed by the book in general - it's far from what my conception of 'encyclopedia' is, I am impressed by number of misprints/errors I came over shortly after opening the book. For example, I learned that the edge of space is at 1,025 kilmeters (page 331) and the first manned space flight was in April 12, 1959 (page 334). Will probably keep this book as a picture album because illustrations are rather nice.

This magnificently written and illustrated book is like taking a flight through space without leaving the comfort of your reading chair! Our unique human desire to explore the heavens is herein celebrated and our subsequent civilian/military applications of discoveries to date are explained with clarity and detail in entertaining and comprehensive essays supported by wondrous photos of our cosmos, clearly understandable charts, graphs and illustrations. Ms. Glover has provided us all with a gorgeous, mind-expanding, rigorously intelligent, captivating and delightful book about a subject that interests us all. A superlative achievement and a grand volume.

This book is not really up to date as far as I am concerned!
Mostly old stuff! Actually I wish I had gone to a book store
and reviewed what they have first hand. This is a lot of money
for its' worth!

This is a rather poor book. It resembles an enciclopedia from the 80s. Anyone who has used googleearth will find the pictures pretty boring. The design of the ilustrations is boring, nothing like the good maps natgeo is sending in its recent issues. Actually I wonder if it is just a reprint of old material, refurrnished and actualized with a photo of the hubble space telescope.

Dont buy it. I am returning it.

I agree, in part, with what each of the previous reviews. The first half of the book holds information on astronomy and the planets. The information in this half of the book is up to date and holds some interesting facts. It not only holds the entries on the history of astronomy, but entries for dark matter, the accelerating universe and more. The solar system section holds the latest information about the planets. However, it was published before the Cassini mission's close flyby of Saturn and the Huygens probe's visit to Titan.

The last half of the book is about the space program, satellites, etc. There were a few obvious errors in that section, but most of the information was pretty interesting and useful.

The imagery is great!

This book is my dirty little secret. It's from a name you should trust for information, so why would I ever throw it back? And it cost way too much money but not enough to spend time wrapping it up and shipping it back to NG. So like a good little consumer, I looked around to see if anyone was watching me too closely and sneaked it onto my bookshelf next to other big, vibrant coffee-table types in the hope that folks would be impressed enough at the spine to go "Aaahh" and then go on to some other colorful tome.

Is this book laid out in an encyclopedia format? Not the Britannica, somewhat alphabetical-type, nope. Are the images amazing? Hardly. Did I learn anything from it? Nope, but that goes along with the dirty little secret part. Maybe I'm just not smart enough for National Geographic. If I were smarter, I'd understand it.

But let me tell you what I really think this book is. It's almost like someone at NG had a bunch of leftover photographs and thought "Hey! Let's build a book about space and get folks like astronauts and cosmologists to write essays for it. They'll get their name out a bit and we'll get to collaborate with some really cool people." (Granted, the 'space' part is really more focused on our venturing out into it, it seems. But why call it an encyclopedia, for goodness sake?)

That's what this book felt like to me.

So why bother writing a review now? Because I found the book that this volume, to me, should have been. And I wanted to compare the reviews. And after looking here and at the other book's reviews, I now know that it's not just me.

Are you a space program enthusiast? You may find this entertaining. You want a real encyclopedia-like segue into space? Check out "Universe" ISBN-13: 978-0756636708. Truthfully, "Space" is still sitting on my bookcase. But the "Universe" book is usually left open so I can pick up where I left off.

Large coffee-table size. A good survey and history of modern astronomy and space science leading to our present understanding of our solar system and the greater universe Includes information on and from the space program and the value of remote sensing.Good r. As befits a National Geographic book there are lots of pictures and tables. This would be an excellent family reference book.

For the beginning astronomer, this is a fine place to start your journey. This is well written (with some noticed errors) and has beautiful illustrations. However, as a gift for a intermediate astronomer, this book was returned. The Universe (DK 2005) is a better starting book and as for an encyclopedia ... the choice goes to the four volume Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Institute of Physics 2001).