Liftoff (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

In both the United States and the Soviet Union at the close of the 1940’s, politics and technology came together with a single goal: to get a man on the moon. From the first rocket ship designs--sleek, winged aircraft--to the more practical, blunt and bulky shapes of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft, LIFTOFF explains why spacecraft are shaped the way they are, why it has taken forty years to develop a winged glider, the shuttle, for space travel, and how things work in space.

Collins presents a close-up look at the people and organizations who have developed and built the machines that have enabled man to travel in space, from Bob Gilruth, Max Faget, and Wernher von Braun to “the ladies of Worcester, Massachusetts,” who are responsible for making the astronauts’ hand-tailored pressure suits. Collins explains the properties of physics as they relate to space travel in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. He outlines the difficulties of propulsion and explains why it is necessary to use multistage rockets to achieve certain orbital altitudes. He defines terms--multistage rockets, for example--that one has heard time and time again without fully understanding them. Interspersed throughout the book are gems of historical anecdotes--John Young smuggled a corned-beef sandwich aboard Gemini 3, touching off a Congressional inquiry--which make LIFTOFF a pleasure to read.

In LIFTOFF: THE STORY OF MAN’S ADVENTURE IN SPACE, as in his earlier book, CARRYING THE FIRE: AN ASTRONAUT’S JOURNEYS, Michael Collins demonstrates a graceful prose style and a knack for melding the humanistic and scientific worlds into a cohesive whole.

Sources for Further Study

Barron's. LXVIII, September 26, 1988, p. 69.

Houston Post. July 3, 1988, p. F12.

Kirkus Reviews. LVI, May 15, 1988, p. 735.

Library Journal. CXIII, August, 1988, p. 167.

The New York Times Book Review. XCIII, July 24, 1988, p. 8.

U.S. News and World Report. CIV, May 16, 1988, p. 55.

The Washington Post Book World. XVIII, June 19, 1988, p. 1.