Space [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Andrew Chaikin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2002

The book covers all the major events of the past five decades of human space exploration.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

From Yuri Gagarin to the no-names riding the International Space Station (ISS), people in spacesuits are the focus of this lavish pictorial chronicle of human spaceflight. Compiler Chaikin clearly intends to restore awe for the human traveler in space. He achieves the desired effect through choosing both famous space-age photos, such as John Glenn inside his capsule or Edwin Aldrin standing on the Moon, and less often seen images. Those of Neil Armstrong grinning in the cockpit of the X-15 rocket plane (and inside the LEM after his moon walk) bespeak the cool technical confidence of astronauts. Yet when Chaikin arrives at the era of space stations, the pictures of people in pedestrian poses are less awe-inspiring. But if the ISS is an expensive bore, the images returned by current robotic spacecraft are much more exciting. Collecting a gallery of Hubble photos, Chaikin restores the thrill. Sure to entrance space enthusiasts. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

A book that captures every aspect of the astonishing developments that have taken place in space exploration over the last six decades. From the invention of rocket power and the launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik, it traces the development of space exploration with a collection of remarkable images. Among the events captured as the momentous flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit the Earth in Vostok 1 in April, 1961, the early Mercury spaceflights, which saw the Americans achieve their goals of putting astronauts into orbit; the flight of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space; the first spacewalks; the Gemini missions, and the Apollo 11 mission when Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon. The book goes on to cover the development of space stations in the 1970s which culminated in a new era of collaboration with the link up of Apollo and Soyuz; the missions of the US space shuttle and the Russian Mir Space Station. there are also many images from unpiloted missions and craft including the incredible images brought to the world by the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Carlton Books; illustrated edition edition (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842224980
• ISBN-13: 978-1842224984
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 11.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,271,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book delivers!, September 13, 2002

By 

Jim McDade (Birmingham, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Space (Hardcover)

Andy Chaikin has chosen some of the most beautiful photographic vistas from the Space Age and packaged them into this wonderful book. This is one book that you want to thumb through slowly as you take in the fantastic views of the incredible sights that humans and space probes have brought back to us since the dawning years of the space age.

Space photography and imaging has given the human race a view of some of the most unimaginable wonders of our universe. We also see the miraculous images of humans and their fantastical machines in a realm long thought impossible to reach. This book beautifully documents all of the key milestones along our greatest journey. These images, taken together, capture one of the more hopeful and forward-looking pieces of the human story.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular!!!!, November 20, 2002

By 

John R. Keller (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Space (Hardcover)

Andrew Chaikin is best known for his classic book "A Man on the Moon" which describes the Apollo missions to the moon and was basis for the equally classic HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon." In his latest offering, Andrew Chaikin presents the history of space exploration from the early space pioneers, through the space race, to the latest space shuttle missions to the International Space Station (ISS) using numerous high quality, large format photographs and a very small amount of introductory text for each chapter. I feel that this book will be another one of his classic space exploration books.

The book opens with a small discussion of the early space pioneers such as Wernher von Braun, Sergei Korolev and Robert Goddard, and their efforts to develop workable rockets. The book then moves into the dawn of the space age and the race between Russia and the United States to achieve various "firsts." For example, the first satellite, the first probe to the moon or another planet and of course the first country to put a man into space. After this portion of the book, the Mercury, Gemini, Vostok, Voskhod and early Apollo programs are examined. The next section is devoted to NASA's exploration of the moon and contains many full page photographs. To further emphasis the grandeur of these missions of exploration, there are several two page foldouts. The next chapter of the book covers the early robotic exploration of the solar system, up to and including the Viking and Voyager missions. The next portion of the book examines the space shuttle era. It is here that I feel that the book should have included more. While the space shuttle has been flying for over twenty years, there is less than twenty pages of shuttle related photographs. The book concludes with the current robotic exploration of the solar system, some really excellent photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station.

I only have two minor criticisms about the book. First, most of the photographs are devoted to the space race up to the Apollo moon landings, with very little dedicated to the Space Shuttle and International Space Station projects. Secondly, many of the photographs are ones that have been published before so there is very little new here. Nevertheless, these two very minor complaints, are overshadowed by the splendor of the numerous high quality photographs is this book.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautifully Illustrated Book Verifies 1960's Moon Race, December 15, 2003

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Space (Hardcover)

This book is loaded with photographs as well as a historical narrative. What I found especially interesting was a series of photographs of the unsuccessful Soviet effort to beat the US to the moon in the late 1960's. These include the large new Soviet booster rocket that kept exploding shortly after launch, as well as a scaled-down (one man) Soviet lunar module that was never used. This information exposes the falsehood, advanced against the US Apollo Program at the time by certain left-wing circles, that posited that there had been no moon race because the Soviets ostensibly never had intended to land men on the moon. They certainly did--and they failed.