Our Place in Space (1960)

A school text from Australia. Our Place in Space was a pamphlet from Pictoral Social Studies (series 2). There were a number of other subjects but this gem stands out.

Our Place in Space. Sydney, Australia: Australian Visual Education Pty. Ltd. (32 p.) 29 cm.

This is the standout illustration. It is a triple page illustration of a moon lander and moon rover

The content was a standard classroom text about astronomy and manned spaceflight.

But even though ordinary in many ways this rare and obscure publication still fires my dreams of space as it must have for those children of the time who had to study this in school.

Intra-Space Stamp Album (1953) (part 2)

Too busy to post so it's SUMMER RE-RUNS!!!!

See here for Part 1 of this post: http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2010/03/intra-space-stamp-album-1953.html

I had a request for more of these wonderful space stamps so here they are:

MERCURY

VENUS

MARS

JUPITER

NEPTUNE

Rockets and Satellites (1961)

Very primitive art in this one but still fun to see how the vision of space is interpreted.

Branley, Franklyn. Illustrated by Sokol, Bill. Rockets and Satellites. New York: Thomas Y Crowell. (40 p.) 21 x 23 cm.

Franklyn Branley did a number of science books for children, usually these were very basic with simple drawings. Harder to find now the art style is very memorable.

Also there was a 1964 UK reprint of this edition and a 1970 edition.

I don't have a lot to add because there are exactly the books that were in my school library and they taught me about launching and orbits and how the Moon circled the earth.

Reminders of a simpler time. When you could pick up a rocket and go "whooshing" to the stars.

Have a good weekend

By Rocket to the Moon (1931/1949)

A new look for the blog and an old book. By Rocket to the Moon is one of my favorite early fictional books about going to the moon. Especially the "technically accurate" illustrations:

Gail, Otto Willi. By rocket to the moon ; the story of Hans Hardt's miraculous flight. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co., 1931

First published in 1928 in German and published in English in 1931, this novel for older children was written by one of the most popular German science fiction writers of the time.

Closely based on the work of his friends Hermann Oberth and Max Valier, it is an accurate mirror of many of the space travel concepts being discussed by pre-war European experts.

Here is the 1949 German reprint:

With new illustrations:

This illustration reminds me of the ramp from the 1951 film: When Worlds Collide. I am sure it influenced their design ideas.

Compare this image to the one above from the 1931 edition.

A beautiful (and classic) descent to the Moon.

You can buy a copy here: http://tinyurl.com/26etlcu

Happy Moonday (on a Tuesday!) plus 41 years

Just wanted to share my best wishes for the anniversary of the first people landing on the Moon!

Space Book for Young People (1958)

I am surprised how no one seems to care anymore. Last year being the 40th year the press gave a lot of coverage. But I am still amazed that I lived to see it so every year I like to stop and remember.

Lenticular postcard 1967 1952, 1958

So here are some books and emphera remembering when no one was sure it would happen:

First Trip to the Moon (1952) comic book
Race for the Moon (Spring 1958) First page of the comic book

French magazine

Today Magazine...The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine (1962?)

Exploring Space (1964)

An oldie but a goodie. There were lots of these Ladybird books (sort of the golden non-fiction books of England).

Worvill, Roy. Illustrated by Knight, B. Exploring Space. Loughborough, England: Wills and Hepworth Ltd. (50 p.) 18 cm. "Ladybird Achievements Book" (601-9). Also 1970 edition.



The format of these books is text followed by a full page illustration. This one covers history of rockets and current space programs.


Illustrations of astronauts, spacecraft, space stations, Moon landing and exploration. Surface of the Earth from space. Surface of Mercury and Mars.

Again inspiring images of our planned conquest of the Moon.

Into Space with Ace Brave! (1955)

It is difficult to show a pop-up book without good photographs. Since usually I scan the images today is a pop-up book with no pop-ups shown!

Illustrated by Ron Turner. Into space with Ace Brave, space-master. With three dimensional pop-up pictures. London: Birn Brothers, Ltd. 8 pages. 1955.

Luckily not all the pages are pop-ups. There are some very nice text pages with illustrations of some of the equipment Ace Brave uses and the beings he runs into.

This space suit is happily over the top. But the only really excessive features are the jets and "flame gun." The rest of it makes a lot of sense. My favorite is "(4)"

"All joints reinforced. A punctured space suit means death!"

Here is a Martian. Evidently even though they look aggressive, they have read Earthmen's minds and decided they are welcome to Alkmeros (what the Martians call their planet).
Finally here is a deep space ship. The Martians and Venusians had contibuted design ideas from their history. In the past the two races had used space ships to destroy the "Gylons" who had threatened the solar system. The two races had rained 5 thousand "Sondo" bombs upon Gylon and destroyed the planet. Good thing they like Earthmen!

Read Magazine (1962)

Read Magazine (Oct 15, 1962 Vol 12, No. 4) This magazine (incorporating Young America magazine) had a special issue in 1962. READ Magazine was a children's classroom magazine for grades 6-10, published by Weekly Reader Corporation.

This snapshot of our planned space program is one of the thrills of searching through the neglected juvenile literature about space flight.

Here are the Dyna-Soars and the Delta-wing Gemini recovery and the Saturn rocket all co-existing in this vision of the future.

These men of space were a cross between the Buck Rogers of the "old school" and the Mercury 7 of the Life magazines articles.

Our Moonbase was just the beginning of this brave new world around the corner.

Everyone in America was involved in making this happen. We were together in a "race" that took the industrial tools of war and aimed them at the Moon.

Soon we will be making spaceships instead of airplanes.

The map to the Moon was self-evident and all we had to do was follow it.