A Vision of Future Space Transportation: A Visual Guide to the Spacecraft of Tomorrow [Paperback]

Tim McElyea (Author), David Brin (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2003

The glorious space age has come and gone. So what now? What's next? To go further, to go faster, we must take the next step. Space is still full of mystery and challenges humankind as much as ever. Ideas on what the next step is, or steps are, vary greatly and there is no shortage of concepts for the future of space transportation. Concepts include new engines, new strategies, harnessing gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear energy and more. This book will take you on a guided visual tour of the future of space transportation. From Earth to Orbit to In-Space transportation, you will sample what is being considered and get an easy-to-understand explanation of what the spacecraft will do and how it will work.

This book is the culmination of years of work with NASA and hours of interviews with leading propusion scientists and aerospace innovators.

Decades ago Dr. Wernher von Braun teamed with Walt Disney to animate a mission to Mars and inspired a generation. Today multimedia, animation and video serve a similar communications need. The CD-ROM included contains official NASA videos, vehicle concept animation, and dynamic multimedia. View spacecraft concepts in 3D, see mission animation and hear first hand what the visionaries of the aerospace industry hope to accomplish.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[The images] are in full colour and detailed, and anyone who has an interest in space transportation will find them worthwhile. I can see future space historians looking to these images to indicate how ideas developed, just as today we look at illustrations of von Braun's early work to see how the concept of the Saturn V and Apollo developed." -- Martin Turner, The Observatory, April 2004. "If the reader is looking for great illustrations this is a dream and let us hope it will stimulate a debate on how we can turn some of the concepts into reality" -- Spaceflight, December 2004.

About the Author

Author Biographic Information

Born in the Rocket City in the mid 1960’s, Tim McElyea experienced the wonder of the space age first hand. In the 1960’s Huntsville Alabama was a flurry of space activity with engine tests, a space museum, rocket parks, and ticker tape parades for astronauts. This early fascination has never stopped.

He earned an Art degree from University of Alabama in Huntsville and began to explore the computer as a new medium. Having exhibited his fine art prints, drawings, and sculpture for years nationwide, he was ready for a new canvas. Computer animation and multimedia proved to be a perfect venue. After working as the Director of Animation and Multimedia for Intergraph Corporation he decided to take the next step. In 1995 he founded Media Fusion, Inc. to be a studio where companies and organizations could come to for artful communication media.

Early on, Media Fusion set its sights on NASA. In 1997 it won a contract to create a multimedia CD for the X-34 space plane. This turned out to be the beginning of a rich relationship with NASA. Today Media Fusion provides Marshall Space Flight Center with multimedia, animation, and creative services. As the lead propulsion center for NASA, Marshall is at the leading edge of space transportation and Media Fusion creates the high profile imagery and media that NASA uses to communicate the future of space transportation.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Collector's Guide Publishing, Inc. (April 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1896522939
• ISBN-13: 978-1896522937
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,809,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Pictures and Little Else, July 18, 2004

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Vision of Future Space Transportation: A Visual Guide to the Spacecraft of Tomorrow (Paperback)

I was very disappointed because I expected some in-depth analysis of space transportation concepts accompanied by beautiful illustrations. I got plenty of renderings but they were mostly ordinary and the text only glossed over the concepts. Some of the descriptions were way off base. For instance, the author took the term "microgravity" literally in describing satellites in low earth orbit (the gravity in low earth orbit is actually almost as intense as on the surface of the earth).

The accompanying CD had only animations and was not informative at all.

For a real vision of space transportation, I highly recommend Robert Zubrin's "Entering Space" or his treatise, "The Case for Mars". They aren't collections of artwork but are more stimulating.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Half-decent Overview, May 29, 2004

By 

James Cho - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Vision of Future Space Transportation: A Visual Guide to the Spacecraft of Tomorrow (Paperback)

The text is very poorly written and has some technical inaccuracies (like an incorrect explanation of how an electric motor works) but it covers most of the important ideas of the subject. Don't expect much from the illustrations though, they're all basic computer-generated imagery, nothing compared to the incredible Mars Spirit lander animation released by NASA. If you can get past the choppy, dryly written prose and mostly unsatisfying pictures then the inherently interesting conceptual technologies may still satisfy you. The book lacks depth though, and any gems of science are usually too muddled in weird paragraphs to be as gracefully expressed as they deserve.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Colliers Magazine of the '50s, May 12, 2003

By 

Spaceboss "importcdboss" (Chicago IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Vision of Future Space Transportation: A Visual Guide to the Spacecraft of Tomorrow (Paperback)

This book could inspire the next generation of space explorers just like the old Collier's Magazines of the '50's did to previous generations. The book is written and more importantly illustrated by Tim McElyea one of the premier NASA animimation and simulation producers down in Huntsville AL. The book has full color renderings of many new ideas of space transportation systems and vehicles. McElyea is careful to point out that he is not a rocket scientist, but an artist. He has included some vehicles that will undoubtedly raise a smile on many a space advocates lips as unlikely to see the light of day. But as McElyea comments it is not up to him to endorse one system over another. He is merely including systems that have technical merit and warrant investigating.
The book is a gorgeous panoply of color photos and computer generated simulations. The most amazing part though is that the bonus CD Rom includes most of the vehicles in full motion with sound tracks. As well as videos produced for NASA of the Advanced Space Transportation Program based in Huntsville and 3D interactive sections.
The book is the official publication of SpaceDay which is a national educational program involving millions of students worldwide. Some of the SpaceDay competition winners are included in the book.
This book is wonderful, I cannot put it down except to look at the CD Rom. Well done Tim McElyea and Apogee Books!