Piers BizonyRezensionen

Fun book and style, a romp across the space business with some background historic context and ambition. The book is from 2009 but is actually quite dated to 2018, lots is changing...

Lacking in specificity and systematic overview: you wont really learn how to build your own spaceship.

Stories about the futute of space are stimulating but just a bit of an odd add-on.

NASA Missions to Mars from Piers Bizony is, as expected, a visual feast. What sets it a bit apart from many coffee table books is just how much good information it contains.

If your main interest is as a large format book for perusal and display, you will be very pleased with this. The photographs and other illustrations are clear and the captions are informative. If, in addition to the visuals you want a book that will offer good reading, this will be even more to your liking. While not extensive or too detailed the text does walk us through the history of our fascination with Mars, from sci-fi to various missions.

This is that coffee table book that certain of your friends will not only flip through but ask to borrow so they can go through it more closely. So be prepared to fill that spot when they go home. In other words, this will be one of your books that might generate discussion among your friends all by itself. What sci-fi do they remember? Who among them followed missions more closely than others? Who, when young, thought about space travel? Okay, that last one will include most everyone.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.½

This gorgeous coffee-table book with its stunning illustrations is one every reader is sure to reach for again and again. Beginning with the “Collier’s” magazine illustration depicting a reusable spaceplane atop a Wernher von Braun-designed rocket and ending with a depiction [from space] of the most important planet in the solar system, each incredible illustration helps to define the American space mission.

Since its inception in 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has depended on artists to depict space missions and the possibilities that astronauts might encounter in space exploration, providing a representation of what the nation might gain through the space program. Each of the illustrations included here come from NASA's archives or from its principal contractors, providing readers with a unique collection of artwork that reveals the context and compelling nature of America's space programs.

Each section includes a narrative providing relevant background and describing the accomplishments during the time frame of the chapter. The caption for each illustration contains all information available, including the artist, the date, and its relevance to a particular space program or mission. Some, such as Robert McCall’s “First Men on the Moon,” are sure to be familiar to many readers; however, most will be enthralling new discoveries to treasure.

Included in the book: First Comes the Dream: How Art Showed the Way to Space; This New Ocean: The Dawn of the American Space Age; One Giant Leap: the Voyages of Project Apollo; Islands in the Sky: Inhabiting the Realm of Earth Orbit; Brave New Worlds: Back to the Moon and Toward the Red Planet; and The Expanse: Exploring Depths of Space Beyond Mars.

Readers with an interest in NASA, space exploration, and/or art will all find much to appreciate in this extraordinary volume.

Highly recommended.

You'll learn way more more about spaceships by playing Kerbal Space Program than reading this drivel.

The Art of NASA: The Illustrations That Sold the Missions by Piers Bizony is a beautiful collection of artwork that helped define NASA and space exploration for the general public.

No matter your age you will likely find several images here that will look familiar to you. For my generation (born 1958), space exploration was awe-inspiring and widely supported. I used to collect government and civilian publications. In those days we could call or write our national legislators and get a lot of free stuff. In addition, I lived in Greenbelt, MD, home of Goddard Space Flight Center, so space was everywhere. Many of the images in this book were likely in some of those publications, and they succeeded in lighting a fire for space exploration long before the current age of science denial took hold. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if some thought space was a big hoax, but I digress.

Both the text of the chapters and the substantial captions offer great contextualizing for each image as well as each phase of the space program. This is a book about the art, so that is what is emphasized. If I want science, I have shelves of both general science and textbooks to refresh my mind. This book is for art appreciation, the role of art in promoting science, and strolling down memory lane.

Highly recommended if any of the things I just mentioned appeal to you. This is for both the science and the art lovers.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

Interesting coffee table size book on the history of the Space Shuttle. The only criticism I have is that the author only devotes one or two pages to a mission and also tended to go for large photos. Would have been more interesting to have more variety in the photos and at least 4 pages per mission.

The Book to read about one of the best films of the late 20th century.

Review to come

Gathered in this magnificent volume are more than two hundred spectacular photographs, most taken by astronauts using a Hasselblad camera, all definitive, archival images highlighting NASA’s manned spaceflight programs. The accompanying text provides details about the particular mission and includes quotes from the astronauts themselves.

The Apollo missions to the moon are the centerpiece of this fabulous collection, but images from Mercury, Gemini, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station programs are included in this stunning volume as well.

Highly recommended.

This is definitely a fancy book, a making-of for 2001: A Space Odyssey formatted in the dimensions of the famous monolith. (I always remember from the novel by Arthur C. Clarke that the proportions are 1:4:9, the squares of the first three integers, though I have no idea if that was actually true of the film prop.) This looks pretty cool, but sometimes makes for inconvenient reading. The cover you see here is actually just a slip cover; the volume underneath is all black with four original graphics meant to evoke visual motifs from the film.

Bizony's history is pretty comprehensive, as far as I could tell, covering Kubrick's early career up until he decided to do a science fiction film in a broad overview, and then going into detail on Kubrick's collaboration with Arthur Clarke, the evolution of the script, the selection of actors, the filming of the special effects sequences, and so on. Sometime it's organized a bit weirdly (I don't know why the section on the music comes after the recounting of the film's release and reception), but overall it's packed with interesting details if you're into the mechanics of filmmaking, such as how that centrifuge set worked. Bizony sources his information from new interviews, archival interviews, and the Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of the Arts London, and it all seems quite thorough. Lots of good anecdotes, and I feel like most any question I've ever had about the making of the film was answered somewhere in here. (I wasn't sure at first about the chapter about whether extraterrestrial life really exists, but by its end, I decided I'd learned enough to make it worth reading.)

It would be a good book with just the text, but the real star of the book are the illustrations, which consist of large, high-quality images, taking in film stills, publicity photographs, concept art, set close-ups, pictures of the filming models, spaceship diagrams, and so on. The pictures are gorgeous, showing just how much thought went into every little aspect of the film. Few movies have such a unified aesthetic as 2001; it's hard to imagine wanting to pore over close-ups of control panels from many other films, but 2001 sustains such interest. Almost every image is beautiful, and the book has a large number of gatefolds that really show off the details at a large scale. Some are disrupted by the book's spine, but those are in a minority; what's more annoying is the sometimes random placement. Most of the time the images are near where relevant events are discussed in the text, but at times, it gets weird, with the images of the polka-dot alien Kubrick experimented with being housed in a totally different chapter than where the experiments are details, for example. But that's a small quibble; you could reread the book just for the images, I think, and have an amazing visual narrative to experience.

Combine this book with Peter Krämer's BFI Film Classics entry on the film, and you will have a pretty thorough take on the film as a whole, both background and interpretation. (Krämer gives some common pitfalls of 2001 discussion, and I was pleased to note that Bizony fell into none of them.) Now I just need to rewatch the movie-- it's been almost a decade since I last saw it, and I've no doubt these two books will give me a renewed appreciation for it.

Not a DIY guide to building stuff in your garage. Rather how to take part, from entry level, in the coming space adventure. Brief but comprehensive.

This is a biography of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, but it's one that often takes a step back from Gagarin's life to offer us a somewhat broader perspective on the Soviet space program and the politics of the time. And that's a very good thing, I think. Space buff that I am, I knew quite a lot about the US side of the space race, but the Russian side has always been much more obscure. Which is not surprising, of course, given the Soviets' penchant for secrecy and obfuscation. Indeed, much of this book was based on interviews with people who really didn't feel free to talk very much until the 1990s. So it's very welcome for its ability to shed a little light on a murky but fascinating part of space history, as well as for the somewhat bittersweet portrait it paints of Gagarin himself as a smart, charming, interesting guy who suffered a bit under the weight of his fame and the strain of life in the USSR, and who died far, far too young.

A very readable historical popular science account with anecdotes from physicists and physics from around the time of the Curies onwards to quarks, Fred Hoyle and multiple realities. Not bad, but disappointingly, one find no attempt to delve into equations and deeper mathematical insight. In the end of the book biologist Peter Medawar is quoted from "The limites of science" where he claims many questions are just not scientific such as "how did everything begin?" and "what is the point of life?" Is this really so? I am not so sure.

An interesting short history of space travel and the ships that have done the traveling is presented in a tongue in cheek format of "instruction" on what steps to take to get into space. This is a nice introduction to space travel which also includes the new space tourism industry as it stood in 2009 (other than the recent successes of the Dragon capsule not a lot seems to have changed since that time).

What the "instruction" format does provide is a second layer of information in the form of opportunities for new progress in space travel. A lot of attention is given in this book to what still needs to be done and how both new companies and individuals can contribute to the space industry by learning from the past.

This is a biography of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to journey into outer space. How his sense of nationalism grew out of a childhood in German-occupied WWII Russia. His fascination with flight, his love of adventure and general good nature took him far in the qualification rounds to fly what he was told "was not a plane."

The first half of the book leading up to his historic flight just flew by for me. The second half slowed down a little, perhaps modeling Gagarin's own life. He was lauded and paraded and became so unattached to his previous existence that he found himself drinking too much. He was no longer in top physical condition and was too highly prized to risk on flying, his first passion. Like many other people, life after celebrity was too much for Gagarin to handle. Finally he got himself together, pulled considerable rank and demanded to train for another mission - much like our Senator John Glenn did many years later. It was during this training that Gagarin perished in a MiG accident.

In addition to the material on Gagarin, I found the information about the USSR space program to be good reading as well. The troubles they had with their own engineering and rockets, the cosmonaut fatalities... these are stories I had not read about before. I particularly found the supposition that the US, tired of being beaten, went for the moon only because they knew Russia lacked the resources to make it there very interesting indeed.

I felt the authors did a good job weeding through the propaganda to present a picture of the real Yuri. The book was very approachable, very conversational and I would recommend it if you're interested in the subject.½

"So there's a cosmonaut up in space, circling the globe, convinced he will never make it back to Earth; he's on the phone with Alexei Kosygin — then a high official of the Soviet Union — who is crying because he, too, thinks the cosmonaut will die."

So begins Robert Krulwich’s NPR piece entitled, “Cosmonaut Crashed into Earth Crying in Rage." I couldn’t resist the title or the lead paragraph, both of which are based on Krulwich’s reading of Doran and Bizony’s Starman. I have slightly mixed feelings about the book. It’s not nearly as “juicy” as the excerpt Krulwich chose to highlight, and it’s not the best writing I’ve come across. However, the authors were able to gather a lot of first-hand information that had never before seen the light of day or been uttered in public. In addition to gaining access to archival documents, they also conducted interviews with Gagarin’s family, friends, and colleagues. Most of it is fascinating.

Starman does a good job of relating Gagarin’s childhood, including his family surviving the Nazi invasion; discussing cosmonaut training and Gagarin’s eventual selection to be the first man in space; and showing how instant catapult into the spotlight disrupted his family life and dreams and directly led to his struggles with alcoholism.

While reading Starman, I ended up watching the film adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff (which I haven’t read). The secrecy surrounding the development of the Soviet space program is a stark contrast to the rollicking, rolling PR machine that swirled around NASA’s fledging efforts. Though the Mercury 7 astronauts became household names, it was Yuri Gagarin’s contribution that paved the way by becoming the first man to orbit the earth. Yet, as Starman relates, when Gagarin and his fellow cosmonauts were first recruited, they weren’t initially told for what purpose they were being recruited.

As with their American counterparts, they were put through a “bewildering array of medical, physical and psychological tests” – moreso experiments - aimed at finding the limit of what humans can endure. There are graphic descriptions of things like oxygen deprivation tanks, isolation chambers, and catapult sleds that are fun but disturbing to read. Obviously these tests were somewhat necessary because nobody knew what conditions would be like in space, but I was particularly enthralled by the 1,200 or so ‘testers’ whose contributions were a vital part of the early space race. Starman talks about the testers, all of whom were less accomplished on the academic/aviation ladder than the cosmonauts, were “invited” to participate – the kind of invitation where the only right answer is yes. As Doran and Bizony tell it, the testers “were seduced with great care by their recruiters into a feeling of privilege and self-worth, but in truth their status was barely better than that of disposable laboratory rats. When they received injuries – and they did receive injuries – there were no special arrangements to compensate them or their families because the authorities were unwilling to acknowledge any of their work in public.”

When Gagarin made his historic flight, his family didn’t find out until neighbors heard about it on the radio. From that moment onward, he unofficially became an international ambassador for the Soviets, but they never allowed him to fly again, unwilling to risk the safety of their “Hero of the Soviet Union.” Though Khrushchev loved him, his successor Brezhnev was not a fan, and this became a problem in Gagarin’s life. He rose in the administrative ranks but didn’t feel he had any true control. The incident that Krulwich highlighted is the pinnacle of that truth. Gagarin and others knew the flight was doomed, but despite Gargain’s position, he was unable to convince the Politburo to cancel the launch; his close friend died aboard the Souyez I. From the time of his flight to his untimely death in a plane crash at the age of 34, he was constrained by the machinery (no pun intended) of the Soviet totalitarian regime.

My quibbles with the book are minor. Overall, it is one that I can recommend to people interested in the history of the space race or Soviet politics. Even if I didn’t always feel that the writing was up to snuff, I was placated by depth of research the authors’ conducted. Their interviewees included Gagarin’s siblings; his personal driver as assigned to him when he planted his feet back on terra firma; fellow cosmonauts (including Gherman Titov, who became the second human to orbit the planet and Alexei Leonov, the first human to conduct a space walk); and the cosmonauts’ academic trainer Sergei Belotserkovsky. They had access to the diaries of Nikolai Kaminin, the Head of Cosmonaut Training and through secondary interviews with the era’s Soviet space programme technical administrators, they also managed to paint a picture of the Chief Designer, Sergei Korolev, the father of modern astronautics.

In the books’ afterward, Doran and Bizony speak to what makes Starman work, stating “Our narrative is a record gleaned almost entirely from those who were at the scene: a firsthand account from men and women … whose voices had been for so long silenced by a fear of a visit [from the KGB]. We were fortunate to be in Russia at a time of unprecedented freedom, largely because the old security apparatus collapsed in disarray upon dissolution of the USSR. … Freedom of speech really did emerge, at least for a while. People who had worked on top secret Soviet projects could speak openly for the first time. Prior to this book, all previous publications on Gagarin were KGB-sanctioned. … The KGB media minders were unimaginative and obsessed with secrecy. They failed understand that what makes us human makes us great…. To the cosmonauts, engineers, KGB agents and family members and everyone else who spoke with us during that short window of expressive freedom, we offer our thanks."

As a side note unrelated to the book and its authors, there is a film available called First Orbit that combines archival flight audio from Gagarin’s trip with footage filmed aboard the International Space Station, while it travelled a similar orbit to the one that Gagarin took fifty years prior, on April 12, 1961. It was pretty thrilling to watch, especially after having read Starman.

Explains the state of the privatization of space as of 2009 or so. Very interesting with a few technical details.

The title of How to Build Your Own Spaceship is not entirely accurate. Nor indeed is its sub-title, "the science of personal space travel". Bizony's book actually provides an introduction to the space industry.

Over seven very readable chapters, Bizony gives a brief history of space exploration, and outlines the various opportunities available in the space industry - either working directly for a government organisation such as NASA or ESA; working for a company manufacturing components for a government organisation; or for a NewSpace entrepreneur like Scaled Composites, T/Space, or SpaceX, among others.

See the rest of the review at http://spacebookspace.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-build-your-own-spaceship-piers...½

This is a beautiful, large format book filled with photography, essays, interviews and more related to the making of Stanley Kubrick's famous film, "2001: A Space Odyssey". Considering there are many books devoted to the films of Kubrick and particularly this film, this is quite possibly the best place to start -- along with Jerome Agel's "The Making of 2001" -- if you are interested in the more visual aspects of the film: special effects, film making, and behind the scenes. The photographs are stunning, the articles are incredibly well researched, and the overall scope of the book is broad and throrough. This book is one of the prized volumes in my film library.