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  Spaceships: Illustrated History (Ron Miller)

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Author Topic:   Spaceships: Illustrated History (Ron Miller)
cspg
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Posts: 6293
From: Geneva, Switzerland
Registered: May 2006

posted 02-13-2016 10:28 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cspg   Click Here to Email cspg     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Spaceships: An Illustrated History of the Real and the Imagined
by Ron Miller
How have actual spaceships influenced the design of fictional ones like the Millenium Falcon and the Starship Enterprise? Did a fiction series in Collier's magazine really inspire us to create real-life space stations like Mir and the ISS? How have our depictions of space travel developed as the reality of space travel changed?

In his new book Spaceships: An Illustrated History of the Real and the Imagined, Ron Miller shows that when it comes to spacecraft, art actually does imitate life and, even more bizarrely, life imitates art. In fact, astronautics owes its origins to art. Long before engineers and scientists took the possibility of spaceflight seriously, virtually all of its aspects had been explored in art and literature.

Miller takes readers on a visual journey through the history of the spaceship both in our collective imagination and in reality. The vivid illustrations trace the spaceship through its conception, engineering, and building, from the practical origins of spaceflight in the wartime V-2 rocket to future Mars programs. They also chart, in exquisite detail, the ubiquity of spaceships in the golden age of space travel (1950s and '60s) plus their broad influence in popular art, television, film, and literature.

Spaceships reminds us of the romance of space travel as it has been, as we imagined it could be, and as it may be in the future.

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Smithsonian Books (October 18, 2016)
  • ISBN-10: 1588345777
  • ISBN-13: 978-1588345776

tfrielin
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Posts: 162
From: Athens, GA
Registered: Feb 2007

posted 02-14-2016 11:14 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for tfrielin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Is this a reprint or a new edition? I seem to recall this (or similar) book from about fifteen years ago.

tfrielin
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Posts: 162
From: Athens, GA
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posted 02-14-2016 11:17 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for tfrielin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yes, I'm thinking of Mr. Miller's 1993 book: "The Dream Machines: An Illustrated History of the Spaceship in Art, Science, and Literature".

cspg
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Posts: 6293
From: Geneva, Switzerland
Registered: May 2006

posted 02-15-2016 08:26 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cspg   Click Here to Email cspg     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It would appear (I hope so) that this book is a collection of spaceships as they appeared in various media. In that sense, this book (hopefully) is a companion to this publication: "The Art of Space: The History of Space Art, From the Earliest Visions to the Graphics of the Modern Era" (Zenith Press, 2014).

The Dream Machines book was a disappointment in the sense that it was a collection of drawings or sketches, if I recall correctly.

tfrielin
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Posts: 162
From: Athens, GA
Registered: Feb 2007

posted 02-15-2016 12:40 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for tfrielin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Well, I suppose since it's nearly a quarter century since "The Dream Machines" (I would have thought it not so long ago, but time flies...) an update or variation on the same theme is in order.

cspg
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Posts: 6293
From: Geneva, Switzerland
Registered: May 2006

posted 03-17-2022 05:08 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cspg   Click Here to Email cspg     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
An updated edition planned for this fall.
This revised and expanded second edition of Spaceships includes sixty-four pages worth of the newest developments in space technology
  • Hardcover: ‎320 pages
  • Smithsonian Books (October 25, 2022)
  • ISBN-10: ‎ 1588347265
  • ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1588347268

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