A Maxton Book About Space Travel (1958)

A Maxton Book About Space Travel  is a happily dated book from the late 1950s. I say dated because many of the design ideas were outmoded within 2 years of publication.

This post is a re-run/expansion of this Sept 23, 2011 posting:
http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2011/09/space-travel-1958.html

Written by Spielberg, Dr. Kurt. Illustrated by Hutchinson, William M. Space Travel. New York: Maxton Publishing Co. (28 p.) 27 cm.

The author's son, James N Spielberg wrote me: "My late father, Dr. Kurt Spielberg, wrote the entire text for this book in 1958. He was a PhD in physics and taught at City College of New York at the time.He is world famous for his work in Operations Research.  In the mid-60s, this book was in my fourth grade class library, and none of the other children would believe me when I told them that my father was the author. But he was. He was a great man, had a career that spanned decades at IBM, and is sadly missed."

 A simple book covering all aspect of space travel including history, physics, U.S. and Russian space efforts, building a space station, manned exploration of the Moon, and exploration of the planets. It has wonderful paintings of all these things devoting a page or two to each topic. "A Maxton Book about" series. See 1960 update and 1963 UK Reprint

William Hutchinson is a wonderful illustrator. I like his soft touch illustrating these different space topics.

 I also like the prediction of future exploration. The "space flight progression" is illustrated nicely as we move from earth orbit, to the Moon, to planetary exploration.