BIG BOOK OF ROCKETS AND SPACECRAFT

A huge double-gatefold view of the International Space Station highlights this gallery of spacegoing craft past, present, and future.

This busy survey is printed on sturdy stock and fills up four fold-out panoramas plus standard spreads between. In it, dozens of probes, satellites, launch vehicles, crewed and uncrewed vessels, space telescopes, and habitats in space and on the Martian surface float in uncrowded arrays against starry backdrops. The digitally painted images are simplified but feature a sufficient number of significant details and design elements to enable identification, and adjacent labels provide the name of each craft, its functions, and often its country of origin too. An admixture of less-common examples, such as the Soviet Union’s formerly top-secret Ahmaz space station and SpaceX’s robotic Dragon, enhance the usual array of Sputnik-to–space shuttle suspects. Furthermore, along with step-by-step schematic views of multistage rocket takeoffs and space station docking maneuvers, there are views of (cartoon-style) astronauts at work to provide a sense of scale. A quick précis of the space race supplies a bit of historical background, and the final spread offers glimpses of future craft that are currently on the design board as well as more speculative notions that are still “twinkles in the eyes of scientists.”

Eye-filling fare for the next generation of space travelers.