Planet Trip (1960)

 

To continue out journey through this wonderful space quartet by William Nephew and Michael Chester is Planet Trip. The next logical step to them was exploring the solar system. They started with Mars and the books ends with Venus.

Nephew, William and Michael Chester. Illustrated by Buehr, Walter. Planet Trip. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. (72 p.) 1960.

So what is the dividing line between science fact and science speculation. I think the experts were agreed that conditions on Mars were unlikely to support plants. But...doesn't it spark your imagination about what if?

So beyond Mars is exploration of Venus. This is science fiction since temperatures on Venus were unthought of to sustain anything. But if there was an ocean and if we found life there. Would we have gotten ready for the next step of going to the stars?

Moon Base (1959)

 

Number 2 in Nephew and Chester’s space quartet.: Moon Base. Just saying the phrase "moon base" brings me a sense of excitement and nostalgia. In fact one of my treasures is my talking Dr. Evil Doll that says "Welcome to my moon base".

Nephew, William and Chester, Michael. Illustrated by Buehr, Walter. Moon Base. New York : GP Putnam's Sons. (72 p.) 23 cm.

And what a moon base it is. Building on the 1st book this one discusses a permanent settlement on the Moon. Many illustrations of rockets, Moon vehicles, and Moon base. 

Moon Trip (1958)

 

Some of you are familiar with the Ley-Polgreen 4 book "Adventures in Space series (Man-Made Satellites, Space Pilots, Space Stations and Space Travel)." 

This is about a 4 book space series you may never have seen. Michael Chester and William Nephew also did a great series of books about the grand space flight progression. They may be less remembered because while their illustrations are great they used a limited color pallet.

So today is a repeat since I did blog about these books in 2010 but probably it is long enough to do a rescan of them. 

Here is the front and back cover of the paperback reprint

Nephew, William and Chester, Michael. Illustrated by Robinson, Jerry. Moon Trip: True Adventure in Space. New York: Putnam. (63 p.) 23 cm.

This is a very unusual HORIZONTAL take-off technique. I have not seen this illustrated before.