Friday, March 26, 2021

Operation Moon: Facts We’ll Need to Know When We Travel to Other Worlds (1955)

 


Operation Moon is an early SRA (Science Research Associates) school reading pamphlet from the 1st year of the program in 1955. (For more about SRA read here). It covers the basics of spaceflight and then explains how we might voyage to the Moon in the future. 

Burnett, R. Operation Moon: Facts We’ll Need to Know When We Travel to Other Worlds. Chicago: Science Research Associates. (48 p.) 1955.






The "Collier's/Von Braun" rocket was still the model for the future

Similarly the Lunar Lander is also modeled after "Collier's/Von Braun"




I like very much these concrete predictions of the future.



Friday, March 19, 2021

L'espace (1972)

 


Part of a series of French children's books (Cadet-rama), L'espace focused on astronomy and spaceflight. I really like the illustration style, a simple and modern approach. 

Grée, Alain.  Illustrated by Alain Grée. L'espace, Éditions Casterman. 29 p. 28 cm, 1972.

















Friday, March 12, 2021

Wait for Us Stars (1967)

 



Wait for Us Stars is a book of Russian space art. Probably not a children's book but still a beautiful picture book.  There is so much in here that I will only share a little, maybe I will do a part 2 another time. It contains primarily the art of  Alexi Leonov and Andrei Sokolov

Wait For Us Stars. 25 x 26 cm. 106 p. 1967.












Friday, March 5, 2021

Himmelsstürmer (1963)

 



This book is not about spaceflight but has a lot of nice space-age illustrations. It is a book of paper airplane models but as you see I don't know if it came with a kit or these were ideas to build. I am a fan of Thunderbirds (Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, 1964), and this has that same futuristic feel to the building and aircraft. The title roughly translates to "a person with highflying (and idealistic) plans."



Himmelsstürmer Hans Linde. Leipzig : Rudolf Arnold Verlag.  32 p. 1963.