A lot of books are coming out right now to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. One of the best, called Voices from the Moon, is by my friends Andy Chaikin and Victoria Kohl.
Andy is familiar to Apollonuts: he wrote A Man on the Moon, considered by many (including me) to be the bible of Apollo, and he knows all the Apollo astronauts and their stories. I have a copy of Voices, and it’s a GORGEOUS book, loaded with extremely high-quality images of the missions, punctuated with wonderful stories from the astronauts themselves (hence the title).
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The Hive Overmind has put up a gallery of beautiful images from the book, just to give you a taste of what’s there. If you’re looking for a gift for yourself or the space enthusiast in your life, this is the one to get.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:10 pm
I agree, I just picked up a copy of this book and it is truely spectacular. Can’t wait to finish it. It is an excellent companion book to his landmark “A Man on the Moon” book. – Jim.
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:42 pm
The Flash presentation is terrible, but the pictures are amazing!
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Hey Phil, I have a great non-medicine article for you: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/07/they_dont_call_it_cheat-lation_for_nothi.php
(Ever think of implementing a “Contact Me” or “Suggest a Link” button?
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:12 pm
another great book – Full Moon by Michael Light. high res scans of NASA negatives.. afaik nobody’s gotten access to first generation negatives from Apollo. brilliant book. I got to see the large format prints on display at the SF MOMA.
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/fullmoon/about.html
Andrew Chaikin, who contributed an essay to this volume, is the author of the definitive study of the Apollo missions, A Man on the Moon (1994), which was the basis of the award- winning television series From the Earth to the Moon.
i’ll have to check out Voices. thanks for the tip!
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Wow, those pictures are amazing! I wish other news media would show these to everyone else. ^_^
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:47 am
Sounds like a great book – I’m keen to find a copy somewhere … Will it be out in Australia yet &, if not, then when? Or will it only be available from the States and Amazon?
BTW. Thinking books, BA – are you writing anything at present? (Other than these blog items I’m meaning, natch.)
I’ve said this before but can I please again suggest and urge you to compose a “Best of the Bad Astronomy Blog book featuring all the best articles and things from this blog and your old site too only in one lovely more permanent rather than more evanescent, easier to read on the bus textual form?
Please?
… Pretty please with Eta Carinae going supernova and NOT delvering us death but rather heaps of awesome information from the skies on top?
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:10 am
This is what I mean & what I suggested before if I’m allowed to say so again … Please, please & pretty please consider doing this!
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Why not compile some of your best posts from the BA blog into a non-fiction book in their own right? A title I’d suggest is ‘Best of the Bad Astronomy Blog’.
That way great posts that survive the test of time & are particularly informative & interesting would be saved from cyber-oblivion, be more widely available and people would be able to easily find, catch up on & stumble across ones they might have missed!
Book form does have its advantages too – you could, for example compare all the “best photos of year X” columns easily & see how some stories have evolved over time and much more. Plus they’re easier & more fun to read on the train, in bed, etc ..
Perhaps with you publishing your original article-posts with maybe some of your own later thoughts and comments about what sort of response and some of the comments people had on each. I’m thinking something like Isaac Asimov did with some of his anthologies perhaps?
Or just the originals or however you’d prefer.
Personally I’d rather read the printed form & a good book than feel stuck to an often frustrating, computer anyday! Of course, the book wouldn’t stay as up to date like the blog does but then that would be okay & encourage people to visit your blog for the very latest too – as well earning you money for old columns also!
So for whatever its worth, here’s ten or so superb articles which you’ve written & posted on the blog which I’d suggest deserve proper publishing and including in this hypothetical book :
1. The Best photos of 2008- 20007 -2005 etc ..
2. The Puzzling planetary (SuWt2) article – “One ring to fool them all” &also the T Leporis one too …
3. “The Red Dwarf that Roared” article /post on EV Lacertae’s huge flare.
4. The original & the follow-up “No Green Stars?” threads. (Which btw. I consider two of your best ever! )
5. The Gliese 581 “earthlike” exoplanet blog post.
6. The “Welcome our Tiny Family” item (The borderline star or brown dwarf with low mass planet -MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb) & some of the other threads on exoplanets such as mapping one of the Hot Jupiters, etc ..
7. Some of the pareoilda threads eg. the face in the A-bomb, in the wood, the “angel” at the fairground, etc ..
8. Those GLAST .. & now .. ‘Fermi’ items where you note your own involvement in science.
9. Some of the Pluto / Planetary Definition threads & also the KBO / TNO discoveries like Eris & Sedna (BTW. Did you ever post about Sedna?Might’ve been before I found this blog I think ..
10. Your Galapagos trip diary & also some of your movie reviews & Dr Who /Trek /SF TV series comments.
Of course, there’s also far more you could include – enough for quite a few “Best of the Bad Astronomy blog” books in fact. Thus we could have Book I, Book II, Book III, etc ..!
Please think of doing this as I really reckon this is worth considering & would help you reach a wider audience as well as just on-line people.
I’d certainly buy it & I bet many others would too.
Best regards :
Steven C. Raine (a.k.a. Plutonium being from Pluto, StevoR, …)
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Any other commenters care to second this or add their own selctions of the BA’s best ever that they’d like to see perpetually in print rather than evanescently in electrons only?
Surely I’m not the only one that thinks this might be a good idea … ?
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:49 am
From the point of view of a person on the moon would a ‘New Earth’ mean it’s a full moon from a point of view on Earth?
July 4th, 2009 at 7:43 am
8. Ed Says:
From the point of view of a person on the moon would a ‘New Earth’ mean it’s a full moon from a point of view on Earth?
I ain’t any astrologomerist, but I do know that the ‘phase of Earth’ would be the opposite of the ‘phase of the Moon’. It was always one of my favorite situations, easy to remember.
J/P=?
July 4th, 2009 at 8:52 am
[...] Voices from the Moon Discover Magazine – New York,NY,USA The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too. Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, … See all stories on this topic [...]
July 4th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
While speaking of books, those who haven’t read EON by Greg Bear, please do so at your earliest convenience! It doesn’t have much to do with the moon per se, but it is an epic space tale! It was written during the cold war, and it’s a couple decades old now so some aspects are slightly dated, but it’s barely noticeable and as with all good Sci-Fi yarns, it hardly matters.
Heck, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein is what…40-ish years old now? You have to scrutinize it pretty intensely to figure it out! (Or read the fine print on the inside of the cover.
Even the technological aspects of that book have aged REMARKABLY gracefully.
*Ahem*
Sorry about that. I get carried away sometimes.
July 4th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
What exactly is The Hive Overmind?
July 7th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
G’day BA,
I was reading on the NASA page for the LRO, it states it will have a 1 metre resolution for it’s optical images on the surface.
What does this really translate to? 1m per pixel, able to define 1m wide objects – and what would they look like? Do you have an example image of 1m resolution?
I’m really curious what the apollo sites will look like. I’m wondering if the tracks from the lunar rover will be visible, hopefully this would be a good argument against the moonhoaxers.
Perhaps a blog post suggestion
July 9th, 2009 at 1:01 am
Just received my copy of the actual book. It looks beautiful!