The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space & Space Exploration

by Giles Sparrow, Chris McNab, Judith John

From the formation of the Solar System to the Moon landings, from the possibilities of life on other planets to how stars shine, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space & Space Exploration investigates the cosmos and humankind's efforts to understand it. Including more than 2,000 color photographs and artworks, the book covers and wide range of topics: from the effects of the Moon on the Earth's tides to exploring the most distant stars, and from the Great Bear to meteorites to the first dog in space.

Accessibly written for the general reader, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space & Space Exploration will inspire and educate anyone interested in finding out more about what makes up our universe.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Science, Space

512 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of this book is a solid 4/4.5 stars. I loved learning details about all the planets in our solar system. Brought me so much joy, I learned a LOT.
The second half is at most 2 stars. Maybe even 1. Riddled with typos (did the editor get bored and leave partway through? there were multiple places where it was meant to say the word foot but instead used "ft" as in the abbreviation of the measurement including talking about where a mans feet were in death yikes), pretty heavily anti-communist, and EXTREMELY complimentary and forgiving of Nazis (and the US military but let's be real, that's kinda the same thing).

Anyway the scientific information was great, the human-centric space exploration information was meh, and the editing was a nightmare but I had a good time reading for a big chunk of it overall. I probably wouldn't recommend this book, especially in the current time, it's already fairly outdated, and especially with all the errors, I'm sure there's something better out there for space information.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating guide to almost every bit of space knowledge one could want to know about the universe. At this point the information is a bit behind but it still built a really awesome knowledge to my previously virtual absence of it. I’m even interested in physics now, which is something I never saw happening.

I’m docking one star for two reasons: one is that there were quite a few grammatical errors that seem to have been missed in editing. A few here and there are totally forgivable especially in a book this size, but it happened quite a bit and sometimes I lost the information because of it. One sentence in the quantum section just doesn’t even finish— it goes off to say “any theory to replace Newton’s should be e” — huh? And two: WHERE IS SALLY RIDE IN THE PIONEERS SECTION? First American woman in space? Come on, how did she get overlooked?

Other than that, fabulous. It has information on everything you could want.

[Bryan Janda]

It was pretty good

[Matt Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

space is sooooooooo cool.

[Sammy Harbors · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a very interesting book and got me fascinated in the cosmos. Everything is here, from star atlases, to the composition of planets and their atmospheres, to introductory physics, to information on the Big Bang. You'll love it! This book is quite new, too... it was just released earlier this year! In other words, don't worry... all information in the book is valid as of now.

[Leif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great engineering view of the space world.