Six Days on Luna One (1965) -Part 1

I admit that I really like all these books I post. I try not to overuse hyperbole but in this case I must.

THIS IS THE BEST SPACE BOOK I HAVE FOUND IN YEARS!

The paintings and illustrations are incredibly detailed and beautiful. The entire book is generously sized and many of the paintings are full page or double page.  I also try not to post every illustration from a book but in this case I found at least 60 different ones I wanted to share.  So I will space them out into 4 posts.  I still do not read Russian so most of my commentary is on what they might portray or simply how emotional some of these paintings are to me.


Six Days on Luna One. I. Shtuka. Illustrated by Teodor Rotreckl. 211 pp. ARTIA, Prague, 1965. Hard cloth cover, dust jacket.  24 x 22 cm.

I think this is a translation into Russian of a 1963 Czech book. The 1963 book's title was:
 Šest dnů na Luně 1 (1963) 

I quote from here:
http://blog.edenfuture.com/2011/01/six-days-on-luna-1.html
 "Maybe the most beautiful book from Teodor Rotrekl´s peak period is Šest dnů na Luně 1 (Six Days on Luna 1, 1963) written by a journalist Ivo Štuka (1930 - 2007). This book for older children combines a real history and possible future of the space exploration with a kaleidoscopic novel set in our solar system. Almost every page contains a color illustration by Rotrekl, some of them quite exciting. Here is a scan of the original artwork used for the cover of the book including a hand-drawn title."

The book starts at a "space academy" in the future. The children are learning about the history of rocketry and spaceflight.

The book basically covers many different visions of the past and future of space flight.

These illustrations remind me of the Disney "Man in Space" paintings. Also worth noting are the numbered illustrations describing the details.

So much more to share, This is only part 1 of this 4 part post. Look for more next week.

"A Chimp Shows the Way" My Weekly Reader March 6, 1961.

My Weekly Reader brought the world to our desks when I was in elementary school (just down the street from JPL). This particular issue highlights how the space program efforts were giving us the expectation that a manned launch would be happening soon. The first human flight was on 12 April 1961 (5 weeks after this issue) while the first U.S. flight was on May 5th, 1961 (2 months after this issue).

"The tests proved that a man may be able to make the same flight"

And just to test if you were paying attention, here is a MWR quiz:

"Who will Be Space Man Number 1?" (May 4, 1959)

Some of my most popular posts have been from My Weekly Reader, a weekly newspaper that used to be distributed in many school classrooms when I was growing up. Here is the announcement of the Mercury Astronauts team, May 4 1959 issue.

"Each would give his left arm to be the first man in space"

I hope you were paying attention, here is a short quiz to test your comprehension (we really did have to do these in class after a shared reading of the article.)

"how could such an attitude help you in tackling your everyday assignments?"

Russian Popular Science journal (1959) Part 2

This is another back cover illustrating a science fiction story inside. I really like the mechanical wings (maybe a little like those in the recent Tomorrowland film.)

One more post on this great journal.  There is lots of non-space stuff in here but wanted to share the space stuff so I sort of stayed on topic. Sorry the text of these posts is skinny but I have been working under some work deadlines.