Space: A History of Space Exploration in Photographs

Andrew Chaikin's Space: A History Of Space Exploration In Photographs is a visual display gathering over 300 images which pay tribute to and trace the history of space exploration. Its appearance in a new paperback edition makes affordable and accessible a visually dynamic, classic history which charts the range of space exploration efforts and discoveries.

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.

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.

it's hard to believe we haven't gone back to the Moon, after seeing these phot0graphs

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.