Thanks for looking at my space art page! I grew up in La Canada, Calif.
in the 1960s living
next door to JPL (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory). All my friend's fathers
were working on various satellite projects so everytime something was
successfully launched or whenever new photos came back we all saw them at
school.
I remember sneaking into JPL as a kid and having one of the scientists
show me around before sending me home. I also remember in Cub Scouts
when someone's dad tested their Pinewood Derby racer for speed in the
JPL wind tunnel.I was one of those kids who besides looking at all these books put stickers from all the space missions on my notebooks. I was convinced that we were going to space and I would live in orbit someday! Sometime in the early 1980s I realized that the space program was not going to put me in space and the world of 2001 was a lot farther away. I started to search out these books that made such an impression on what I thought the future would be. It was an amazing time 1948-1970, how rapidly the vision of what was possible changed. In those 22 years space travel went from fantasy to an everyday occurence. It is hard to believe now it wasn't just a dream.
Since I could not find a list of these wonderful and inspirational books I have built a collection of several hundred of them. I am currently working on a bibliography as well as several articles about these books. If you have any favorites that you don't see here, please write, I probably have them in my collection but haven't put a scan of them up yet.
My current project is a complete illustrated list of these books. See here.
Also I can provide (for a fee) high quality scans of illustrations of the books you see here and many more.
John Sisson
Science Library
University of California at Irvine
PO Box 19556
Irvine, CA 92623-9556
email:dreamsofspace@gmail.com