Dreams of Space: Before Apollo

The four-title “Moon Flight Atlas” series commemorates the 50th anniversary of humans landing on the moon. Readers could easily miss the brief introduction at the beginning of each book as it is poorly placed, appearing at the top of the copyright page. Divided into 13 chapters, each book also includes a timeline related to the main topic, a table of contents, a glossary, an index and a “Webfinder” which provides a few related web sites for further study. The text is written in question-and-answer format which allows readers to read the book in smaller chunks or only the segments that are of interest to them. However, some of the questions are rather loosely related to the main topic, there is some overlap among the titles, and occasionally, there is not enough information. For example, the label accompanying a photo of a gas gun states, “This handheld ‘gas gun’ helped Ed White move around in space”, but it does not explain how. There are also a few grammatical errors, such as “When an astronaut breathes, they exhale moisture”. Quotes from astronauts, pilots, astronomers and others are a bonus. Those from pilots and astronauts are of particular interest as they describe what the Earth looks like from the moon. They also provide a different perspective on what it is like to be travelling in space for, even though NASA’s calculations and planning of space missions are very accurate, space travel is not infallible and things could still go amiss. Lastly, the information in this series can be readily found in other books. Illustrations include colour and black and white photos, drawings, diagrams and a few maps.

Dreams of Space: Before Apollo begins with the speculation of fiction writers, scientists and movie makers from the 1800s and early 1900s who imagined that travel to the moon was possible. The remainder of the book is devoted to the history of rocket design, testing new designs, the U.S.-Soviet Union space race, and NASA’s Gemini program. There is also information about robot explorers, unmanned space probes whose photographs of the moon helped to provide info for moon maps and survey possible landing sites.

Though this series capitalizes on the moon landing’s 50th anniversary, it delivers nothing new in the way of information. It will be of interest to outer space aficionados, but, for the average reader, some of the technical facts will become slightly overwhelming.