Spacecraft: 100 Iconic Rockets, Shuttles, and Satellites That Put Us in Space

The launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957 ushered in a new epoch in the history of mankind, the Space Age, effectively paving the way for mankind to leave the Earth's atmosphere and explore the frontiers of space. Since then, about a dozen countries, hundreds of people, and dozens of companies have reached outer space through rockets, spaceplanes, space probes, space stations, and satellites.Michael Gorn and illustrator Giuseppe di Chiara describe and illustrate the 100 most influential spacecraft conceived in six decades of the Space Age. They divide this book into three eras, each organized by components (spaceplanes, rockets, robotic spacecraft, capsules, and space stations). As for the first era of the Space Age, the Sputnik satellites, but also the Explorer 1 satellite, Luna 1 probes, and Vostok, Mercury, and Gemini manned spacecraft are highlights of why the 1st Space Age was clearly a product of Cold War superpower rivalries, because the launch of Sputnik 1 not only alarmed the US by raising concerns among some politicians about the USSR overtaking the US technologically, but also cast doubt on the US narrative of the Soviet Union as a technologically backward country in which scientific innovative spirit was heavily suppressed by the heavy hand of communist philosophy (in other words, another piece of proof that Soviet tech was just as good as that of the capitalist word). Despite being ahead of the game in manned spaceflight with the Vostok and Voshkod (the latter space capsule was used by Alexei Leonov to perform the first ever spacewalk), the USSR's initial lead in manned spaceflight was eroded not least because of the repercussions of the death of the Soviet space program's founder, Sergei Korolev. The second section can be best described as the beginning of the fading of Cold War echoes in space exploration and the birth of space-based investigation of the cosmos, because it highlights the entry of the European Union into space exploration business in the 1970s, but also records the dawn of orbital reusable spaceplanes with the American and Soviet space shuttles, while highlighting the Hubble Space Telescope and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The Cassini-Huygens and Galileo space probes as a whole helped record information about Jupiter, Saturn, and the biggest moon of Saturn, Titan, while the Giotto space probe became the first spacecraft to investigate a comet. The third and final part of this book illustrates the enhanced complexities of space travel on a global basis and the effects of the dissolution of the USSR on manned space travel by recording America's preparations for exiting the Space Shuttle era with the Orion, the SpaceX Dragon, the CST-100, and Space Launch System, highlighting the ISS as a symbol of US-Russia scientific cooperation in the post-Cold War world, discussing the Chinese Long March rockets as well as the Chinese Tiangong-1 space station and Shenzhou space capsule, and describing the privately funded Falcon and Antares, but also describing space probes and space telescopes built by not just the US, but also the EU, and the world's first privately funded spaceplanes (SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo) and the first US military spaceplane, the X-37B. As a matter of fact, New Horizons will be pivotal in recent space exploration for helping enhance knowledge of Pluto.Giuseppe di Chiara did a good job of providing 3-dimensional illustrations of the spacecraft included in the volume, offering diagrams of the internal structures of illustrated rockets, satellites, lunar landers, and space capsules. He also illustrates the timeline of the evolution of designs for the Mercury, Gemini, Vostok, and Voshkod spacecraft, Space Shuttle, Salyut and Almaz space stations. Diagrams are provided for the flight profiles of a number of space rockets and the Space Shuttle.Although the authors have done a good job discussing how the frontier of space has been exploited by spacecraft built by the Bear, Eagle, and Dragon, they omit a number of spacecraft that they could have found significance in Space Age history. For example, the Hiten lunar probe launched in 1990 was the first lunar spacecraft built by a country besides the US and the USSR/Russia, while the Lambda-4S launched by Japan in 1970 thrust the Far East into the realm of space exploration.If anyone is interested in space technology and its role in shaping the history of space travel, "Spacecraft: 100 Iconic Rockets, Shuttles, and Satellites That Put Us in Space" is a valuable literary guide. As such, it is the first book to describe and illustrate the Falcon, Antares, and Space Launch System but also SpaceShipTwo, the Dragon and Orion space capsules, and the under-development CST-100.

Spacecraft weaves together the histories, technological challenges and marvelous successes of the vehicles engineered to explore near-earth space as well as the planets and moons in our solar system. The narrative is a compelling and fair story that is well-organized by era, then by component type (capsules, rockets, robotics, spaceplanes, stations), then by the spacecraft series from each nation.It was enlightening to read about the roles of government and contractors and the tension arising from competing agendas. I learned how the technologies and missions were greatly affected by critical accidents or politics: these sometimes promoted but sometimes diverted or stopped spacecraft development. In each section, you will find yourself gliding from US to Russian (or other nationality) versions of similar craft to put them in technical and historical context. You’ll find explanations of the abilities and limitations of spacecraft components and of the driving personalities behind design and capability choices.I especially appreciate the wonderfully detailed drawings. The vehicles are clearly depicted in different projections, including cross sections to show the important internal features. I know of no comparable source where one can find such cross sections (I once tried Internet searches to find the layout of Soyuz capsules, but had little success). Also, there are numerous sketches showing launch, orbit, and landing sequences. It’s great to study these, as they would be difficult to appreciate with text descriptions only.I have only minor quibbles: First, I realize that not all drawings of each spacecraft in each series could be included (the book would be too long!) but I would have preferred to see a drawing of Mariner 10, rather than Mariner 9, because the text described it as having a very different appearance and it was a milestone: the first spacecraft to visit two planets. Finally, I found an inadvertent error in converting rocket thrust from English to SI units (to be corrected in the next edition, no doubt!)Dolores Walters, PhDPrincipal Scientist, L3 Technologies

Marchandise reçue en parfaite condition. Merci beaucoup!

Dieses Buch ist eine tolle Ergänzung zur Raketen Enzyklopädie von E. Reichel.

Muy didáctico y esquemático. Útil para los amantes de la astronáutica.

Gran volume. Per gli appassionati di astronautica é un vero gioiello. Immagini e commenti dei principali veicoli spaziali fra il 1957 e il 2017. Pregevolissime le tavole di Giuseppe de Chiara, che descrivono talmente bene i veicoli che paiono emergere dalle pagine! Ne raccomando l'acquisto, e non solo agli appassionati, ma anche a chi é profano dell'argomento.

O livro traz desenhos técnicos dos veículos espaciais, desde os primórdios da exploração do espaço, de antes do lançamento do Sputnik, até os foguetes atuais, como o Ariane V (ESA), o Falcon Heavy de Elon Musk e os da Blue Origin, além dos recentes veículos espaciais indianos, japoneses, dentre outros. Desenhos técnicos de vistas e com referências de cores, ótimos para plastimodelistas, como no meu caso, mas também um passeio pela história da exploração espacial através de sua arte gráfica e outras informações técnicas sobre acoplagens, estágios, lançamentos e trajetórias... Fortemente recomendado para a biblioteca de qualquer um que se interesse pelo tema.