'Science has never been so horrible!', 01 Mar 2007
`Space, Stars and Slimy Aliens' is off on another planet! Will you be spaced-out to discover:-
which astronomers killed people?
why space makes the guts explode?
what the moon smells like?
If you think you can stomach the `sick' side of Science, then read on as we blast into outer space. Zoom around the planets with `Oddblob' the alien, find out which galaxies eat each other and see if you've got what it takes to be a staggering stargazer.
With fantastic fact files, quirky quizzes and crazy cartoons, `Space, Stars and Slimy Aliens' is out of this world!'
143 pages, written in a variety of fonts in the usual Nick Arnold entertaining style.
Black and white illustrations/cartoons throughout, as well as `Bet you never knew' fact-boxes, e.g.:-
`The `Van Allen' belts, named after US scientist James Van Allen, who found them in 1958, are between 1000 and 25000 km from Earth. The Sun's radiation gets trapped by the Earth's magnetic fields in the belts. But if a spacecraft broke down there, the astronauts would be revoltingly roasted by the radiation.'
Science has never been so horrible!
Amazing Machines, 14 Feb 2005
We bought the whole series of Amazing Machine books and my two year old son loves them. The pictures are big and bright and really capture the imagination. Perfect bedtime reading - the only problem being that he wants me to read them all !
rocket love, 29 Oct 2004
My 2 1/5 year old loves this book. Its one of his favorite for bedtime. It is beautifully drawn. Graphics are big and easy to understand. I like it as it makes it easy to explain the concept of the earth and moon. The characters are really cute. Definately a boys book
Two Engineering Marvels!, 27 Aug 2008
The Service Module and Command module are incredibly complex engineering marvels that carried the Apollo astronauts to the moon (and back) in the harsh space environment. The command module also brought the astronauts through the earth's atmosphere safely home. As an engineer by education and experience I find these vehicles breathe taking.
It is fascinating to see the complexity of all the systems on the vehicles. Extremely well illustrated, this book provides an excellent overview into the work that went into developing them. One can see by the sophistication of the vehicles that the training necessary for the astronauts to competently operate them was serious business. Even more amazing is that this is just the high level view of these vehicles. Each of the systems: Radar, propulsions, life support, instrumentation (and more) have many more layers of complexity!
This book and Virtual LM a about the lunar module (also written by Scott Sullivan) are both worth the read for anyone interested in the space program or engineering marvels, or both!
The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide To: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking
Virtual Apollo, 06 Feb 2007
Superb. This thin book is a feast of detail on the CSM. I've always had difficulty imagining how the astronauts fit this strange conical spaceship and this book has fixed it. It'll make watching film of them in the CM much less confusing. I've never seen diagrams from NASA, and I've searched, that do what this book has done. Full colour throughout and a good selection of aspects to detail. I can't fault it. The best addition would be getting into a real one.
A must-have for space technology buffs, 03 Feb 2005
This is a marvelous compendium of drawings, as is the companion volume on the Lunar Module. Three quibbles only: some of the drawings could use a scale indicator (say, a virtual rod with a standard length) and astronaut figures would be helpful sometimes. I was a bit disappointed at not being able to read the markings on the CM control panels (as you can in the LM volume). But these are minor points.
Looking at these books really took me back to the days of Apollo. I can't help thinking that a similar effort today would not be workable, and not just in terms of funding/organisation/motivation, but in terms of technology as well!
Excellent engineering images of the Apollo CM and SM, 23 Nov 2003
A truly superb book which shows a tremendous amount of technical detail on the Apollo Command and Service modules.
I hope the author is doing a similar treatment of the Lunar Module. My recommendation? If you are a space tech enthusiast this book is a must have. Buy it and enjoy the many pictures. If you need further descriptions get it from the NASA web sites but these pictures are unique.
Virtually complete !, 27 May 2003
Big on pictures, short on words. For those interested in the construction and details of the Apollo Command/Service Modules, this book is amazing. Full of computer generated images of every aspect of the CSM it is a modellers heaven.
The author must have spent hundreds of hours painstakingly entering numbers to render these images.
If I only have one critisism of this title, it is the fact that I was left wanting a "Virtual Apollo" on CD-ROM to explore for myself ! Had the CD-ROM completed the package, this would have been a five star item !
I pray that the author is working on a Lunar Module version at this very moment.
