Santa did not disappoint on the book front this year, delivering three large format space books for me. All three are by the same author, Rod Pyle and are fairly recent publications. ‘Missions to the Moon’ was released to co-incide with the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11 and features some beautiful imagery from the space race. As with many of these books, the images have been released previously, but Pyle also includes less common shots of NASA staff and photographs from Mission Control and the training procedures.
Background information also includes some rare documents and diagrams from the planning stages of Apollo, such as this drawing of the projected mission.
However, the books greatest strength lies in its use of ‘AR’ or augmented reality. By combining the use of a mobile device and a dedicated app, certain images in the book can connect automatically to the app and show video and audio clips on the device, open digital copies of online documents, or most surprising of all, display full 3d models, seemingly overlaid on the pages of the book, which can be viewed at any angle.
Probably the most impressive application of the technology is the large model of the Lunar Module, which springs out of the photograph and sits on the page of the book, to be viewed by moving the phone around the main spread.
A separate image supplies a fully realised image of the Lunar Rover too.
Pyle’s earlier book, ‘Destination Moon’, takes a similar look at existing NASA photographs documenting the moon missions, but includes transcripts of the conversations and transmissions which occurred during the periods covered by the photography.
Probably the most interesting section covers the dialogue between Mission Control and Apollo 13, after the Service Module was crippled in an explosion, leaving the three astronauts stranded in a failing spaceship en-route to the Moon.
Images show the ground crew desperately formulating plans to rescue the crew and figure out ways to use the limited resources aboard the Command and Lunar Modules.
Finally, we revisit Mars with a large format hardback, again by Rod Pyle, which looks at Man’s attempts to send a probe to the red planet, documenting the many failures by Russia and America, before a probe finally managed to photograph the mysterious planet.
Again Pyle includes a range of interesting informational sources, including diagrams, maps, historical photographs and artist impressions of projected vehicles and missions.
It is difficult to present information which has been published many times previously, in an interesting fashion, but Pyle achieves this very well, with coverage of all the major missions from the early sixties, up to the successful Curiosity Rover.
He also provides an some speculative detail on how future Mars exploration might take place, following the establishment of a lunar gateway and manned moon base.
