Book Reviews | Universe Today

When is the best answer not the right answer? Assuredly many historical events epitomize this dilemma. Randall Whitcomb digs into Canada's Avro Arrow story and delivers up such an event in his book, "Cold War Tech War – The Politics of America's Air Defense". In it, he shows how a plane, successfully designed and built for winning tomorrow's war, ended up not being chosen as the perfect answer.
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We work hard to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. If lucky, we've got some time left over for other activities. Patrick McCray's book "Keep Watching the Skies – The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age" is the story of a program that took advantage of some of those spare hours. During its time, this program had people encouraged, organized, and trained to view the skies and contribute to the nascent space age.
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With all the probes recently landing on Mars, it's no wonder we feel that the planet is close enough to vacation there. Robert Zubrin has such a scheme already in place for his book entitled "How to Live on Mars – A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet". Though vacationers are welcome, he much more expects the arrival of immigrants who are ready and raring to put spade into ground for a homestead of the future.
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Being part of a series on a "people's history of spaceflight", Chris Gainor's book entitled "To a Distant Day – The Rocket Pioneers" relives the onset of humankind's age of rocketry. Though starting from a broad, distant vantage point that includes Galileo and Copernicus, this book quickly jumps to Tsiolkovsky and other recent rocket luminaries. Then, it speedily presents the wondrous people and their amazing effort that led to human spaceflight.
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Fear remained in the air even after the great global conflict of World War II ended. This arose because, rather than ushering in peace, the cessation of hostilities brought a new fear, the cold war. The History Channel's 2 DVD set entitled, "Sputnik Mania" shows just how fear permeated throughout the society of the United States and its impact upon the new technological field of rocketry. Whether being rational or even real, fear is shown to be significant catalyst to our journey to the stars.
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Have you ever been inspired by the two planets Mercury and Venus? If so, Peter Grego's book "Venus and Mercury and How to Observe Them" brings to us much of what we've learned about them and much of how each of us can learn some more.

Mercury and Venus are the two planets closer to the Sun than Earth. Because of this, they always appear in close proximity in the sky to the Sun. Bright Venus is easily seen when it's present. Mercury, being quite duller and at best much closer to the horizon is much harder to see. And seeing it as a dot isn't seeing anything spectacular. In fact, neither planet provides details, even to a viewer using a telescope. But, that doesn't mean your planetary inspiration should die.
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Before the Saturn IV rocket, there was the Saturn I and Saturn IB. These helped pave the way to the Moon as shown by Alan Lawrie in his book entitled 'Saturn I/IB – The Complete Manufacturing and Test Records'. Though usually hidden in the shine of its illustrious successor, these launch systems were a vital step in proving components, technology and processes.
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With warmer weather returning to the Earth's northern hemisphere, we can again venture forth under the night sky for pleasant star gazing. If you're just beginning this pastime and are planning to rely upon binoculars, then you should also consider Stephen O'Meara's book, "Observing the Night Sky with Binoculars – A Simple Guide to the Heavens". It will have you comfortably cruising the night's starry sphere in no time with its straightforward techniques and handy mnemonics.
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The "science book" by National Geographic shows just how 'incredibly, unbelievably, immeasurably cool' science is. With a format little changed from countless encyclopaedias, this book provides the reader with a huge expanse of our accumulated knowledge. From star shine to number systems and from behavioural patterns to fracture tectonics, it's all science and it's in this book.
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Hawaii beckons the weary winter resident who's searching for some relaxing moments on soft beaches while gentle sounds drift across with the breeze. The Big Island, with its high peaks and occasional dustings of snow, seldom attracts the Honolulu-bound pleasure seekers. But Jean-Charles Cuillandre has made a cinematic symphony that has another Hawaii based way of connecting a person to the ethereal pleasures of our existence.

Entitled "Hawaiian Starlight –Exploring the Universe from Mauna Kea", this DVD shares views and vantages from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Spectacular stills exhibit galaxies, star trails, asterisms and the occasional portion of the lunar surface. Simple transformations, whether rotating, enlarging or shrinking, give impressions of dynamism. Bright, almost startling, colours capture the attention and the viewer's wonder. With views that continually change and a soundtrack that steadily supports and subtly thrills, the main feature of this DVD easily keeps viewers in awe.
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Some of the best tourist discoveries occur off the beaten track. Plan to go somewhere, choose a fortuitous route and voila, a petite patch of paradise opens up in front of you. The same can be true for planning a night of star hunting. Dial coordinates into a 'go-to' satellite and you will immediately see your target, if all works well, but, you won't see anything else. However, take "The Cambridge Double Star Atlas" by James Mullaney and Wil Tirion, then star-hop to your destination, and who knows what you will find.
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Spend enough time with anything and it begins to acquire a personality beyond its mere physical presence. If your life relies upon that particular object, as with a pilot and their plane, then the intensity of the relationship increases even more. The consequence, as shown in the book "The NASA Northrop T-38, Photographic Art from an Astronaut Pilot" by Lance and Ann Lenehan and Story Musgrave, can be a step beyond simple observation and appreciation. It can be an exulting testimonial.
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The Apollo Moon missions stand as the ultimate in humankind’s ascension beyond Earth. Only a few, favoured individuals explored, frolicked and golfed on the Moon’s surface. But their favour came with the grace of the Apollo program, countless individuals and an extraordinary effort by one nation in a race with another. Rod Pyle in his portfolio book "Missions to the Moon" provides an entertaining resource for anyone wanting to relook at one of "Man’s Greatest Adventure".
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This one can be filed under the "Better Late Than Never" department: Writing a review for Phil Plait's book "Death From the Skies" has been on my to-do list ever since the book came out last fall. Oh, I read the book as soon as it arrived at my door; but making the time to actually write the review has been a challenge. NASA, ESA, all the observatories, NewSpace companies, and everyone else in the space and astronomy business finally got my memo to have a slow news day so I could actually sit down and write this review. But look at it this way: now, my review can be a gentle reminder to anyone out there who hasn't yet read this book to get the lead out and buy it! So now, without further ado, here's the review I've been meaning to write for months:
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Great pleasure can be had in sailing across a gentle, blue sea with a fair wind at the back. With little more effort than a slight nudge upon the tiller, you and your craft can travel great distances at a leisurely, enjoyable, relaxing pace. Now, replace wind and water by sail and photon as a trio of authors write in their book "Solar Sails – A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel". In it, Giovanni Vulpetti, Les Johnson and Gregory L. Matloff show a very capable and promising method of local and interstellar travel.
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