Yeah September is here, which means I am off the web for a while so I wanted to leave you with a "juicy" post. This is an amazing book called "Build Your Own Moon Settlement." It is both a craft book and a space architecture book.
Written by a real architect it is not an "adult" book but seems more directed to older children and curious/crafty adults. It is hard to find and I have never had the nerve to actually build the Moon settlement. Basically the last few pages of the book is the punch-outs that you can fold into various structures.
Wilson, Forrest. Build Your Own Moon Settlement. New York: Pantheon Books. (32 p.) 21 x 28 cm. Softcover. 1973
With very limited "space art" this book is a craft book that allows you to build cardboard models of some of the major modules a Moon settlement would need. Written by an architect, its 27 pages of text outline his ideas for how a colony would work. A unique book, characteristic of this post-Moon landing period.
I had this book and it remains an inspiration to me. Books like this were one of the reasons I started designing my own card models when I was a kid, a hobby I still do today (and a continued source of some freelance income too!) Some years ago, I tried to market a series of simple, modular paper models that would make a "moon base" and seeing this model once again I'm surprised how much I must have been influenced by this book because the designs I came up with are surprisingly similar to the designs in this book. Fascinating!
ReplyDeleteI also had this book as a child, and I still think about it as people have started to talk about returning to the moon.
ReplyDeleteQuite interesting, and perhaps even moreso given the 2018 book which arrived in mail Saturday, Building Habitats on the moon, by Haym Benaroya, pub, Springer-Praxis. That pairing of publishers have several titles on lunar habitats published here in the 21st century and late 20th centruy.
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