Book Description
Three hundred spectacular views of Earth taken by the latest generation of satellites.
For orbiting satellites, no place on Earth is isolated. The Himalayas are as easy to photograph as Manhattan. While satellite images are important for science and technical needs, they can also be appreciated for their astonishing beauty.
Earth From Space shows how satellite imaging -- also called remote sensing -- works and showcases some of the most extraordinary photographs ever published.
In the mid-1990s a new generation of satellites began to orbit the Earth. More powerful and accurate than ever, they can record the effects of human and natural forces, and how the planet is changing through time can be clearly seen.
The book also dispels popular misconceptions like those used in Hollywood movies for dramatic effect such as exaggerated surveillance capabilities of orbiting satellites. However, what the satellites do see is nothing short of spectacular.
Earth From Space presents stunning color photographs of:
- Coastal ports and major world cities
- Military installations such as the Russian Pacific submarine fleet
- Rebuilding lower Manhattan and the Pentagon after 9/11
- Landscapes of wars including Iraq and Iran
- Rain forests, wetlands, coral reefs, rivers and mountains
- Effects of deforestation and desertification
Earth From Space covers subjects ranging from aeronautics to history to ecology with unforgettable illustrations - an expansive big picture view of the world.
Customer Reviews:
Earth From Space: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.......2006-02-22
The condition of the book is good.
It took about 10 days to delivery the book from US to Hong Kong. The delivery is quick.
The view from above.......2005-11-10
This collection of color satellite images is fascinating and awe inspiring. Dramatic images show weather phenomena like active hurricanes, forest fires and tornado paths. Rivers, oceans, lakes and deserts illustrate the varieties of our planet and other images show how man-made constructions have altered the earth. Especially distressing are images that show the effects of deforestation and oil spills. Cities like Paris and New York are featured as well as famous structures like the pyramids, Statue of Liberty, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in New Orleans and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. City views alone would make a fascinating book - this volume shows aerial views of Paris, New York, Venice, San Francisco, San Diego, Pittsburg, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. One of the most memorable images is a photo of Earth taken at night showing city lights.
really nice visuals.......2005-05-22
Lots of computer graphic enhanced pics, Not alot of text, But it does have lots of pics of the natural world and human impact. A must for a geography lovers library.
The Latest and The Best .......2004-12-30
This book is incredible. To my knowledge there is no other collection available with such up-to-date (many were shot in 2003) and high-resolution photographs of our planet from space.
Most of the photos are mind-boggling. There are many instances of comparison shots that span decades. For example, a 1967 Rhodonia (province in Brazil) shot and a 2002 Rhodonia - the Amazonian deforestation as seen from space is shocking. This book is a fantastic resource for the conservation-oriented.
It is also a very aestetically pleasing book. While many photos show ecological damage, others show the wonderful wholeness of our planet. Shots of snow-covered North America (after a winter storm) were also very beautiful - I had never seen such a photo before, with great swaths of the Midwest covered in white. City shots are also very revealing.
You will have difficulty closing this book once it is opened. I give it my highest recommendation.
Book Description
Experience the thrill of flying some of the world's most important airplanes and spacecraft. Best Of The National Air And Space Museum provides unprecedented access to the most popular museum in the world.
The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum hosts more than 9 million visitors a year, and the newly opened Dulles Center –three football fields long and ten stories high – is a phenomenon in its own right: in the first week it was opened, some 250,000 people came through the doors.
Best Of The National Air And Space Museum features the best of both museums, from the Challenger space shuttle and the Wright flyer to the Spirit of St. Louis and the stealth bomber. Bob Van der Linden, curator of aeronautics, has selected the most historically important, popular, and just plain impressive aircraft and spacecraft from the collections of both museums to be captured in the book's beautiful full color layouts. Each layout includes intriguing facts of the item's design, use, mission, specifications, and dimensions. It's like your own guided tour!
Customer Reviews:
Nat'l Air & Space Museum review.......2007-01-23
Great photograghs with well written copy. This book makes me want to go to this museum and see first hand the items displayed. Highly recommend!!!
Great photo essay, history of aviation and space.......2007-01-18
i'm an engineer- worked rocket motors, and various satellite programs. this book was recommended by associate after visiting the museum at Langley. The pics are super, with short descriptions, and moderate on the tech. It's an amazing pulse of this wild history, and mostly is from America's lineage. St. Louis, Mercury, Atlas, and up to current Shuttle. There's also the SST, and unique turn of the century early birds. A fine read to be shared with a youngster (my son 10, digs it), or for the history or engineering buff. amazon has it cheaper than at the museum.
Book Description
This is perhaps the finest collection of cockpit photographs in existence. The Museum (NASM) holds the world's premier collection of historic aircraft, but visitors to the museum must maintain a respectful distance. In
At the Controls, NASM photographers Eric Long and Mark Avino use creative lighting techniques and an extremely wide-angle lens mounted on a short-bodied, large-format architectural camera to duplicate the sensation of actually being at the controls inside the cockpit of 45 legendary aircraft. The reader experiences a pilot's-eye view of the cockpit.
Among the 45 featured aircraft are these history-making planes:
- Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer
- Blériot Type XI
- Fokker D.VII
- Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis
- Supermarine Spitfire Mk.VII
- Focke-Wulf Fw 190F-8
- Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmovik
- Messerschmitt Me 262
- Boeing B-29 Enola Gay
- Sikorsky UH-34D Seahorse
- Project Apollo Lunar Module
- Space Shuttle Columbia
Customer Reviews:
Great photography, broad sweep of history, but uninspiring prose........2005-08-06
This is a very nice, broad look at lots of cockpit interiors and aircraft exteriors. It's not as good as Nijboer and Patterson's Cockpits of the Cold War, but I found the pictures very clear and devoid of the overly-dramatic (and obscuring) artsy-fartsy photography typical of aviation history books.
This is a Smithsonian book, covering aircraft in the Smithsonian collection, so the authors and photographers had unfettered access to each of the aircraft involved. This is evident in the consistent image quality. The images are still not as inspiring as Patterson's work, though, and he had to go traipse across the world to get his aircraft. The thin volume covers the Wright Flyer to the Space Shuttle, which is a little overreaching in my opinion. I tend to like more narrow focus.
The prose is a historian's perspective, not the gritty pilot first-person accounts captured in Cockpits of the Cold War. It's not bad prose, but it's clear that the cover of the book correctly lists the writers as "editor" rather than "author." Still, this is a must-have tome for any serious aircraft afficianado.
Get in the Cockpit and Fly.......2001-11-15
If you love aircraft, this is a book for you ! The photography of the cockpits is stunning. The information about the control and instruments of flying from the day Wright Brothers, to the Spirit of St. Louis, the Warbirds of WW II, to today's Spacecraft
is extraodinary ! I bought the book just to have a photo of the greenhouse of th B-29 Superfortress, my plane in WW II. I was not disapointed. A plus was a view of the A Squares of my 497th bomb Group, 73rd Wing of the 20th Air force in formation.
Average customer rating:
- Great Book
- Air and Space : The National Air and Space Museum Story
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Air and Space: The National Air and Space Museum Story of Flight
Andrew Chaikin
Manufacturer: Bulfinch
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Official Guide to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
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Space: A History of Space Exploration in Photographs
-
Best of the National Air and Space Museum
ASIN: 0821220829 |
Book Description
Drawing on the peerless collection of the National Air and Space Museum, this magnificent book brings us the story of the conquest of the skies. From the first hot-air balloon to the Wright brothers, the Apollo moon landing, the Mars Pathfinder mission and beyond, Air and Space beautifully captures the innovators, discoveries, and adventures of aviation and spaceflight.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book.......2004-05-17
A good history of flight coupled with excellent photographs. Recommended.
Air and Space : The National Air and Space Museum Story.......2000-05-27
Worth it for the photos alone. The writer shares with us his life long love of aviation. He explores the history of aviation in a fashion that will please the expert as well as the curious.
He uses the Smithsonian collection to make points about the hsitory of aviation. The book is not limited to a description about the collection, th e history is augmented with photos and anecdotes. A great book for enthusiasts, history buffs, fans of photography and readers in general
Book Description
The dream of flight is one of the oldest in human history. We read about it in ancient Greek mythology and visualize it through Leonardo da Vinci's sketches of flying machines.
The Book of Flight traces the remarkable story of the pioneers, inventors, and daring pilots who turned that dream into a reality. Based on the outstanding collections of the National Air and Space Museum, this handsome book brings to life milestones in flight history: the development of ballooning; the earliest human gliders; the Wright Brothers' first sustained flights; Charles Lindbergh's solo trip across the Atlantic; Amelia Earhart's courageous flights; Chuck Yeager's blast through the sound barrier; the Apollo astronauts' first steps onto the moon; and the building of the International Space Station.
Richly illustrated, this book takes you on an exciting journey through time. You'll watch early inventors at work, thrill to the first air races and the dogfights of World War I and II, peer inside a flying boat of the 1930s, and witness the horrific explosion of the airship Hindenburg. You'll ride in the DC-3, marvel at the technology of the stealth fighter, and experience life aboard the Space Shuttle. As you turn the pages you'll meet barnstormers and ballonists, stunt flyers and flying aces, and rocket scientists and astronauts.
More than 350 photographs and illustrations portray the development of aviation and space flight. Diagrams explain concepts such as jet propulsion and supersonic flight and depict the workings of rockets and other devices. A comprehensive glossary provides easy-to-understand explanations of technical terms.
The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, with more than eight million visitors annually, is home to the world's most famous collection of historical aircraft, rockets, and space vehicles.
Book Description
This fully illustrated guide to the world's most-visited aviation and space museum is both an indispensable companion for visitors and a detailed history in itself of humanity's quest for flight. The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) houses the world's greatest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft plus an amazing assortment of other historic objects. Many fascinating items from the twenty-three galleries and two off-site facilities are presented here in 197 full-color photographs, and are accompanied by their equally intriguing stories.
Average customer rating:
- Exactly what it claims to be . . .
|
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Directory of Airplanes: Their Designers and Manufacturers
Manufacturer: Greenhill Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1853674907 |
Book Description
This valuable directory contains a wealth of data on the history of aviation and attempts, for the first time, to identify every aircraft manufacturer and designer and every aircraft produced. This indispensable reference book is a comprehensive guide to the sheer number and variety of aircraft produced in the last hundred years.
The directory has thousands of entries with, for each manufacturer or designer, the names of all the classes of aircraft produced (powered fixed wing, unpowered fixed wing, powered rotor rotor-craft and unpowered-rotor rotor-craft). Entries are cross-referenced and brief histories of important companies have been added to enable the researcher to chart mergers, closures, and name changes. Significant nicknames and code names are also detailed. This valuable and unique book presents a vast, official array of data in an accessible form and is an essential reference book for any aviation enthusiast.
Customer Reviews:
Exactly what it claims to be . . ........2002-07-09
This directory, according to the introduction, is a byproduct of the effort to reorganize "a century's worth of aviation documents" in the National Air and Space Museum files. The result is an alphabetical listing of some 5,000 manufacturers/designers which have produced roughly 25,000 discrete types or models of piloted aircraft, about which NASM presumably has some information. For example, "Ferguson, Charles J. (California)" is listed has having designed/produced the "Ferguson Glider". Likewise, some 60 iterations of the basic C-130 Hercules design are listed under "Lockheed (Burbank, CA)". However, this book is exactly what the title suggests--a directory. You'll find no further information about the Ferguson glider or any of the many Hercules variants between the prototype YC-130 and the latest AC-130U.
What you will find are very brief histories of those companies (Lockheed among them) which have been transformed over the years through mergers, name changes, and so forth. This can help the serious researcher unravel some of the complex "arrangements" that have been made in the aircraft business over the years, particularly concerning companies that have long since ceased to exist. As would be expected in a work of this type, there are also some bits of what might best be described as aeronautical trivia. On page 253 is listed "Schmuck Aircraft (See: Monarch)".
The last 65 pages consist of another alphabetical listing of aircraft by name. Thus we find that the "ABC Glider" was produced by Schultz and the "Zwergreiher (Heron)" is the name given to the Burgfalke Lo 100.
In summary, this directory will no doubt serve as a useful guide to those fortunate enough to actually access the NASM files, and hopefully it will soon be found on the reference shelves of most libraries. It will also be helpful to someone who's trying to figure out what company built the "Gnu", for example, but bear in mind that to find anything ABOUT the thousands of aircraft listed here, you'll have to keep looking.
Average customer rating:
- In short....
- apology for a *big* mistake
- It's nobody's fault and everybody's responsibility
- A small victory for Veterans
- A gripping tale of a true liberal torn to pieces by wolves
|
An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay
Martin Harwit
Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0387947973 |
Amazon.com
Martin Harwit's An Exhibit Denied is a cautionary tale about what happens when politics intrudes on the objective quest for truth. The year 1995 marked the 50th anniversary of the flight of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In preparation for that anniversary, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum began work on an exhibit that would not only reprise the events surrounding the bombing, but would also examine the bomb's impact on people--both Japanese and American, civilian and military. Under the guidance of Martin Harwit, a former professor of astrophysics at Cornell University, the planned exhibit included, among other things, Japanese civilian artifacts from the bombing and documents showing that high-ranking military leaders such as Dwight D. Eisenhower had grave doubts about dropping the bomb. Most controversially, the exhibit did not support the commonly held belief that the bombing saved countless lives by preventing a land invasion, and this is what eventually led to its downfall. Harwit pointed out that there was no way of knowing how the war would have ended without bombs; the American Legion national commander demanded that President Clinton shut the exhibit down.
What followed was a donnybrook of epic proportions as the media, the Republican-dominated Congress, and veterans' lobbying groups all portrayed Harwit's attempt to present the Enola Gay in an objective light as antipatriotic, left-wing propaganda. Eventually, Harwit was dismissed and the Enola Gay exhibit was drastically rewritten. In An Exhibit Denied, Martin Harwit once again brings his scientific method to the telling of this story, presenting both sides of the argument and letting the facts speak for themselves. What those facts tell us is truly disturbing.
Book Description
The National Air and Space Museum's attempt to mount an exhibition featuring the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, broke down in a firestorm of controversy. Even fifty years after the end of World War II, many of the issues the exhibit would have covered - the difficult decision whether to drop the bomb or mount a full-scale invasion of Japan; the conduct of troops on both sides; the attempt to display artifacts once belonging to citizens killed by the bomb (which would, in some people's eyes, grant the Japanese nation the status of victims); the nuclear arms race that followed the end of the war - proved too painfully divisive for America to confront dispassionately. Not only did liberals fight with conservatives, but different factions and different military organizations advanced conflicting views as well. This was not the first museum exhibition to become a political football, but it may have been the most important, and its failure is a signal cultural event of our time. Martin Harwit was the Director of the National Air and Space Museum until shortly after the exhibit's cancellation under congressional pressure, after which he resigned his post. His beautifully written and extensively documented book tells the entire story, from the initial decision to restore Enola Gay through the breakdown of cooperation to the cancellation amid a well-organized p.r. campaign by military groups opposed to the exhibit.
Customer Reviews:
In short...........2005-04-30
Revisionist spreading FUD as retribution for his dismissal after being caught in his misrepresentation. The "Da Vinci Code" of WWII literature.
apology for a *big* mistake.......2000-08-17
I've had a very close relationship with the National Air & Space Museum--I was a Verville Fellow there in 1989--so I am not reflexively opposed to a museum exhibition about the atomic bomb. But Mr. Harwitt's big mistake was to think that NASM could rewrite history without creating a firestorm. This was not a case of a liberal beset by conservatives--though that happened also. It was a case of revisionist history caught by the facts.
In the aftermath of the Enola Gay flap, Mr. Harwitt left NASM, and the museum has been a better place for his departure. I've seen the change in my visits there. There is a nice balance now between veterans of the military air services on the one hand, and academic museum curators on the other. This balance is going to be difficult to maintain in the future, as the worlds of academia and the military grow farther apart. But the tenure of Admiral Don Engen (and now his Marine Corps successor) has been a great advance over the Harwitt years.
My advice is not to bother with this apologia, and instead to read some of the worthwhile books written by NASM staff members like Don Lopez and Robert Mikesh.
It's nobody's fault and everybody's responsibility.......2000-08-07
This is an amazing book. It gives us an idea of how far others will go to suppress the truth and how afraid of it they are...when they can only respond to truth as if they were in an arena of threat and attack...and so, riddled with that sort of delusive thinking, can only respond with threats and attacks themselves, which is what all those good old boys were doing when they started hyperventilating over the planned Enola Gay exhibit that Harwit was overseeing.
I was an American Legion student governor, as well as an American Legion counselor in a Boys State, government study program and I was a student of Martin Harwit's at Cornell University..both within a five year span. It was a Midwestern American Legion Boys State program of which I was damn proud. I'd met few "foreigners" prior to my arrival at Cornell and maintained a firm identity as a kind of "how the hell are ya, my name's _______ and I'm damn glad to meet ya" midwesterner. I was and am "damn proud" to be an American, more grateful and humbled to be an American than anything else. I accidentally landed in one of Mr. Harwit's College Scholar seminars at Cornell one semester and had a kind of intellectual epiphany over the next few months...about the relation of technique in the experimental sciences and the creative arts. Here was a real educator, a real scientist, a real man...who would invite you home for supper where you'd chat with his wife, while he chopped wood outside for the fireplace. As an All-American boy from the Midwest, I appreciated his values, I also appreciated his passion for truth.
Harwit had a painting in his home...of a woman's veiled face, it was a symbol of his own homeland of Czechoslovakia, and I learned that this man knew something about freedom and struggles that are fought for freedom. I understood from his story that he knew the prices that are paid for freedom...especially when it comes to speaking the truth to powerful institutions that can have very little interest in the truth, when the needs of that institution, or certain individuals within those institutions, are not met by the truth.
My brother was in the Navy. My father was in the Navy, served in WWII. I must admit how emabarassed I am when I see "servicemen" react to the facts, as laid out in Harwit's book, in such a cowardly, bullying way, as they did towards Mr. Harwit in Washington (when he was planning the exhibit) and how they do in some of these reviews here. I thought the whole point of being a true American, one who loved one's country, was having the guts to take a look at the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's not people like Martin Harwit who make me ashamed of being an American, it's frightened little pups who don't know how to say, "it's nobody's fault and it's everybody's responsiblity" who try to shut people up, ruin people's lives when the truth doesn't agree with their "version" of it.
But I don't want to give the impression that I'm so naive to think that this doesn't happen in America. Nor do I think that Harwit was as "blind and naive" about the "wolves in the woods" as is suggested in a review here. But Harwit is responsible. Harwit did have a job to do. Harwit, a former serviceman himself, was going to do his duty...just like the pilot of the Enola Gay did his. He had to mount a responsible, thorough exhibit...as well researched and laid out as Harwitt expected our papers to be in his classes at Cornell.
Harwit, in taking responsiblity, invites and reaches out to others, to share in a dialogue, the kind of dialogue the Enola Gay exhibit would have sparked; but unfortunately, some cannot be reponsible for the dialogue, because they are afraid of their own damn shadows, they think that the hand of responsiblity or the process of paying attention and being heard is a fault-finding process, a finger pointing at them, because they feel guilty as hell inside, paranoid perhaps, but in reality, have nothing to fear.
Listen WWII veterans and all Americans and all Japanese citizens and all members of the global village: the atom bomb is nobody's fault...and it's everyone's responsiblity. Let's say it again just to make sure it's not misunderstood and nobody runs with a tail between their legs to get some politician to start censoring the internet, not because of the pornography that's all over it, but because somebody's saying it's America's fault that the bomb was dropped...no, listen: concerning the Atom Bomb: it's nobody's FAULT and it's everybody's responsibility. O.K.? Now...what are we gonna do about it? Do we have the abiity to respond and do we understand that we'll be saying quite a bit about ourselves in how we respond?
To avoid that responsiblity by getting itchie, bitchie and twitchie about something that doesn't make us feel like our patriotic poop tastes like chocolate ice cream...shows the real danger in America...not that of an atom bomb...but the way we think! It reminds me of what Albert Einstein once said, "...the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything...except our way of thinking..." Einstein understood, as demonstrated by the folks who attacked Harwit in D.C. and who still maintain that, in his book, he's trying to undermine the lives and efforts of American servicemen during WWII, that the way people think and act on their thoughts is far more dangererous than a bomb. Why, a split atom can change everything in the world...except for one thing: a stubborn, proud, nescient, fearful man's MIND.
We need to change the way we think about talking about the atom bomb and about what happened when the atom bomb was dropped...we need to learn how to be responsible in the way that Harwit teaches us to be. He has taught me more about real American values, especially when it comes to speaking the truth, facing the truth and taking responsiblity for the truth...than any politician in Washington D.C. ever could.
In the words of that great folksinger, Vern Partlow, who wrote the great tune, Old Man Atom, The Talking Atomic Blues...
"Yes, my brothers it's plain to see... old Man Atom is here to stay... but OH, my dearly beloved...are we?"
Thank you, Mr. Harwit, for all your efforts as an educator...and, as a true educator (educare) for all your efforts in leadership.
A small victory for Veterans.......2000-05-07
Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer, I read this book just to see what the mind set was of a revisionist liberal, its sad that as time goes by the memory of our veterans will be remembered in this way, I for one am glad that Mr harwitt lost his job on this issue but I know someday there will be someone just like Mr. Harwitt who will try to make us feel guilty for winning world war two but that there will not be as many veterans still alive to fight him. I'm a 35 year old former navy enlisted man and my grand father served honorably in the Pacific during the war and was slated to be part of any future operation agains the japanese home Islands He for one was relieved that it never happened. In closing i would likek to say this did mr harwitt forget that japan attacked us on a sunday morning at pearl harbor but somehow he tried to make us feel bad about being an American, the best page in the whole book is 289 when Mr Tibbets summed up the whole issue in what took harwitt 425 pages to do.
A gripping tale of a true liberal torn to pieces by wolves.......1998-10-12
In the relative peace which followed his resignation over the controversy surrounding the planned exhibition of the B-29 bomber 'Enola Gay',Martin Harwit, Astrophysicist and former Director of the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution has penned an extraordinary work; the chronicle in painstaking detail of one man's naivety and gradual downfall by the man himself. Whether intentionally or not, Dr. Harwit's dry, objective setting out of the facts - correspondence, the times and places of meetings, what was said and what followed - serve only to sharpen the focus. Dragged through the fires by the media, berated publicly by veterans' groups backed by military organisations and finally betrayed by his new boss, Dr. Harwit nevertheless maintains even now a bemused detachment in addressing the extraordinary debacle his planned exhibit caused.From optimistic beginnings, the plan to exhibit the Enola Gay, the plane which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima,is systematically attacked by well-organised opponents, many of whom have parlayed a lifetime in the military into new, post-retirement careers in lobbying. These old warriors are shrewd, well-disciplined and adept both at networking and political horse-trading - all those things the hapless Dr. Harwit is not. He, nevertheless, believes from start to finish that everyone has a valid point of view and that all of them can be accomodated in a single, sprawling, unfocussed exhibit. His plans to include items showing the horrific effects of the explosion on the Japanese civilian victims outrage the veterans, to whom the Enola Gay was the Hammer of the Righteous, bringing a swift and ultimately humane end to a war which promised to drag on into a full-scale invasion of Japan. Dr. Harwit is unfailingly fair-minded and trusting, two major errors in this arena, and the reader cannot help but feel for this essentially decent man as he plods resolutely into deepening snowdrifts, the wolves padding out of the trees on all sides. He summons evidence which directly challenges the veterans' views about the likely progress of the war after spring 1945, and carefully dissects their largely specious arguments about the charter and mission of the Smithsonian. Ultimately, though, whether he is right or wrong is immaterial, for he has taken on a vastly superior enemy and his few friends abandon him one after the other. Finally, he is left to fall on his own sword, insisting to the last that compromise is possible and a way may still be found to placate all parties.For anyone interested in the way history is interpreted by those who weren't present at its making and the violent clash of these constructed views with the stark, ever-fresh memories of the veterans themselves this is a gripping read.Even those with little interest in military history or museum curation will find themselves rooting for one side or the other, and the denoument is as good as that of many a political thriller. Dr. Harwit is to be congratulated on his impartial account; the few places in which he allows himself a comment or occasional exclamation mark serve only to highlight the cold objectivity with which he presents the story of his own downfall. At the end, the reader is left with the abiding image of a plain, decent man wandering lost in a world of enemies, none of whom he had ever dreamed he had.
Book Description
This fascinating book tells, in concise text and abundant illustrations, the story of the fifty-year struggle for dominion of outer space between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The companion volume to a new permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, "Space Race" examines the spectacular, publicly celebrated milestones of the first steps into space, as well as highly secret efforts to spy on adversaries from high above the Earth. More than one hundred photographs document technological advances in spacecraft, spacesuits, and surveillance equipment, while also telling the human story of space flight with pictures of astronauts, notes on their record-breaking journeys, and reproductions of engineers' first thumbnail sketches and rough outlines of what would become state-of-the-art rocketry.
120 pages, 68 color and 34 black-and-white photos. Smythe-sewn paperbound book, with flaps. Size: 8 1/2 x 11".
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Photographic Survey of the Space Race.......2001-06-06
This relatively short book, a little more than a 100 pages, presents the US-USSR space race in high quality pictures with a small amount of accompanying text. Some of the pictures are the classic photographs from the space race; however, most of the photographs have rarely been publishing and even then only in specialized publications. There is a great presentation of Russian documents and hardware.
The book opens with a section on the German development of the V-2, the race to be the first country to place satellite in orbit, and the development of each countries ICBM arsenal. The next section, which covers more than half the book, is devoted to the race to the moon. This section also contains a great deal about the Russian moon program and has some really nice photographs of the Russian Moon Rocket, the N-1. The final section of the book covers spying from space.
While I doubt this book contains any real new information, the many highly photographs, especially of the Russian hardware, makes this book well worth its price.
Space Race in Pictures.......2001-05-31
This relatively short book, a little more than a 100 pages, presents the US-USSR space race in high quality pictures with a small amount of accompanying text. Some of the pictures are the classic photographs from the space race; however, most of the photographs have rarely been published and even then only in specialized publications. There is a great presentation of Russian documents and hardware.
The book opens with a section on the German development of the V-2, the race to be the first country to place satellite in orbit, and the development of each countries ICBM arsenal. The next section, which covers more than half the book, is devoted to the race to the moon. This section also contains a great deal about the Russian moon program and has some really nice photographs of the Russian Moon Rocket, the N-1. The final section of the book covers spying from space.
While I doubt this book contains any real new information, the many high quality photographs, especially of the Russian hardware, makes this book well worth its price.
Great book featuring awesome photos.......2000-10-07
Space Race offers the casual reader a glimpse of the "space race" from its humble beginnings to the triumphant landing on the moon.
Many of the photos presented in the book have never before been published before.
I bought this book for my collection of other books on astronomy, space exploration, etc.
I have not regretted my decision.
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