I thought this would be a book about the ISS and maybe Mir, something to skim and discard. I was pleasantly surprised by its scope, beginning with an early appearance of a "brick moon" space station in mid-19th century science fiction and placing the concept of space stations firmly in the context of early rocketry and space flight. This book has earned a place with the rest of the space-related books on our shelf.

I'd be interested in reading a 15-years-later update.

In less than a century in space, humankind has built only four inhabited outposts in orbit – Salyut, Skylab, Mir and the International Space Station. Since 31 October 2000, there has been a continuous human presence at the ISS, although Mir was permanently inhabited between September 1989 to August 1999. Given that the first person to leave the planet, Yuri Gagarin, did so on 12 April 1961 – nearly half a century ago – that’s a surprisingly short, and recent, period of time.

But then, not everyone has agreed that space stations are useful; and even now there are those who consider the ISS a waste of money better spent on other space-related projects. Yet a space station captures the imagination in a way that’s only been surpassed by the Apollo Moon landings. If you look up at the sky, there are people up there, some 340 kilometres above your head – that’s about the distance between London and Liverpool. As I write this, there are in fact thirteen people in orbit: six in ISS Expedition 23‘s crew and seven on STS-131 Space Shuttle Discovery.

For rest of review see: http://spacebookspace.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/space-stations-base-camps-to-the-... ( )