Hammond's Guide
to
The Exploration of Space
(picture of circular space station and clipper ship)
The Solar System
Space Station Space Ships
Instrumented Satellites
A Settlement on the Moon
15 Illustrations in Full Color
Informational Charts · Descriptions · Explanatory Text
I recieved a copy of this guide from my
grandmother about
4 years ago. While not in
excellent condition (has torn
creases on a couple spots), it is an
excellent antique poster from the early days of
the space race.
The thing itself is from
1959, which I estimate because the latest launch date is listed as 10-13-59, and has estimations for
satellite lifetimes to
1960.
Despite this, it has no other
references to dates, most notably in the explanations of the technology. This pretty much renders it immune to the
clichés of late 1950s-1960s space "futures," namely going out of date (
theory wise).
It has several
informational pieces on the back, which are mainly
descriptions of items from the artwork on the other side.
They include:
A look at our solar system
Settlement on the moon
Space Station
Space Ships
Space Taxi
Instrumentative Satellites
Nuclear Powered Satellites
Television Satellite
Battery Powered Satellites
Space Suit
Rockets
Interplanetary Ship Central Control
The Tracking Camera
and finally
Time Table of Space Exploration with Status of Satellites
On the
opposite side, there are many
conceptual drawings, none of which resemble the actual
counterparts of those that have them today.
Purely
theoretical in design, they are your typical
50s era space station design in
many cases, with long
cylindrical designs with rounded ends, often resembling large
tube balloons, or
structurally similar to the early
soyuz capsules launched by the
Russians.
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An interesting bit of history I found, and I figured that I'd share with the people of E2 (as I can, of course).