Ebook The NASA Archives 60 Years in Space Piers Bizony Roger Launius Andrew Chaikin 9783836569507 Books

Product details Hardcover 468 pages Publisher TASCHEN (December 24, 2018) Language English ISBN-10 3836569507

The NASA Archives 60 Years in Space Piers Bizony Roger Launius Andrew Chaikin 9783836569507 Books Reviews

• A quick bit of background...
  
  I am a long time space exploration aficionado, have many books mostly to do with manned spaceflight in the 1960's. I have several other recent comparable large hard cover books featuring the manned space program including Moonshots, Moonfire, Full Moon and Apollo VII-XVII.
  
  The book....
  
  Starting with how this book is packaged - it literally comes (from anyway) triple boxed. You open the book, there's a slightly smaller book that is the shipping box for the book. You open that box, the book is inside a shrink-wrapped illustrated carrying case style box complete with handle typical for the largest, most lavish Taschen books. Carefully open the carrying case and this huge 15lb book inside is also shrink-wrapped. Everything graphically about this book is over-the-top. The dust cover and paper stock is thick semi-gloss paper, almost card stock. The dust cover and the chapter break photos have silver ink printing to accentuate the 4 color images. The actual book cover is an embossed photo of Buzz Aldrin's boot print on the lunar surface. The text is fairly large and easy to read. Binding, printing and overall quality of the photos and other images included is outstanding. Perhaps fortunately due to practicality issues, there's no fold-out spreads. This is *not* a book you can cradle in your lap and read, it's just too big and heavy.
  
  From a content standpoint, this book gives a very broad overview of American space program in a mostly chronological way. Informatively, this is the kind of book tailored more towards the casual space exploration fan. For the die-hard space enthusiast, almost all the photographs are fairly common, including iconic photos such as Ed White's spacewalk to the Apollo 11 moonwalk images to classic shuttle/spacewalk, ISS and of course, beautiful Hubble deep space photographs. There's also a few illustrations of hardware, missions, etc. The big draw here is the sheer size (most are full page images) and quality of the images included. IMO, I think content-wise, for so-called coffee table sized photo books, Moonshots and (the original full size HC) Full Moon books are a bit better and go a little more in depth but that is in large part because those book focus on the Apollo program itself. But big as those books are, they are physically dwarfed by "The NASA Archives."
  
  One thing I would caution potential buyers - be very careful when putting the book back in it's case and closing the top. It's very easy to catch the edge of and accidentally damaging the top of the dust cover.
• Was really thrilled to find this book was double boxed and came in a protective sleeve, arrived in perfect condition. The book itself is massive and is of quality construction. All the photographs are incredible. Can’t wait to sit down and read every page.
• Like the other reviewers, I have been a space buff since watching Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight (I was very upset at the time that the replays of the flight preempted my watching the latest Lone Ranger and Superman episodes). I have several large, hardcover books (such as Moonfire, also by Taschen), but nothing like this! The book is HEAVY-must weigh 10-15 lbs. and comes in a box with a carrying handle. I won't go into more details about opening or the description of the book as another reviewers have more ably done that. Suffice to say, the book is magnificent-worth the cost. For any serious fan of the space program, you can't go wrong having this book in your collection.
• I have looked at many books of photographs from Apollo. The pictures in this book are spectacular.
• This book is a work of art. I cannot get myself to open it - the package is so well put together. Shipped meticulously to prevent damage during shipping. The book comes in a beautiful carrying case. Keeping it in the shipping box for now and debating whether to purchase one that I will actually open and enjoy. AMAZING !!!
• This is a beautiful (though quite heavy) book. It was worth the wait to have it in my book collection.
• Informational in historical and present day overview of NASA from it humble beginnings to landing Men on the Moon and beyond......!!! 5+ stars
• “The NASA Archive” is an extraordinary object---I almost hesitate saying “book.” A monument to NASA (literally and figuratively it weighs nearly 15 pounds; fortunately, it comes in a carrying case equipped with a handle) celebrating the agency’s sixtieth year of existence and the fiftieth anniversary of its greatest achievement---the landing of human on the moon---”The NASA Archive” is eminently worthy of its subject.
  
  In spite of what its title implies, the book goes beyond NASA in telling its story in words and pictures. It gets a running start by backing up decades before the agency’s existence and begins with a tip of the hat to Jules Verne and the text of an article from a 1929 issue of the science fiction magazine, “Science Wonder Stories.” There are five spectacular pages of artwork by Chesley Bonestell and Rolf Klep from the seminal “Collier’s” magazine spaceflight series of the mid-fifties. We have the dialog between Chuck Yeager and Muroc Tower during his epochal faster-than-sound flight. Likewise, the images draw from many sources other than NASA itself, thereby providing a much more complete and well-rounded impression not only of the history of NASA but of its effects on both technology and culture. I was pleased to see that the author drew upon the resources of the NASA Fine Arts Program for some of the imagery for the book, which add a specially emotional and human touch to the experience.
  
  All of the photos and art in the book, I might add, are reproduced with a definition that is eye-dazzling in its detail and brilliance.
  
  The text is primarily by editor Piers Bizony---who created the no less spectacular ode to “2001 A Space Odyssey---with essays by Dr. Roger Launius, who had been chief historian at NASA for more than a decade, and Andrew Chaikin, author of the recent history of the Apollo lunar landing program, “A Man On the Moon,” and all did the splendid job one would have expected from these authors.
  
  I cannot recommend this book more highly. It is an extraordinary achievement in itself, memorializing one of the supreme human and technological achievements of the past century.
  
  Ron Miller, author of "Spaceships," "Space Stations" and "The Art of Space"