THE LIBRARY
SPACE
The latest book releases for curious minds
FROM SPUTNIK TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
“Space takes us through some of the big gest milestones in space travel”
AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR JAN VAN DER VEKEN
PUBLISHER PRESTEL
PRICE £19.99 / $24.99
RELEASE OUT NOW
The story of humankind’s ventures into space, from unmanned spacecraft and our first tentative test flights in the 1950s to today’s International Space Station missions, is replete with incredible tales of technological feats and individual heroism. Take the story of John Stapp, for example, which sets the standard for
Space, the latest transport book by writer and illustrator Jan van der Veken: Stapp was a test pilot who built a rocket sled to assess the effects of sudden, massive acceleration and deceleration on the human body. He was strapped into his sled by assistants before he hit the ignition button and went from zero to 620 miles per hour in just five seconds, then back to zero in an even snappier 1.4 seconds. Dozens of these human test runs left him with broken ribs, wrists and bruised eye sockets, but Stapp survived, and the data from these experiments was invaluable to the safety systems incorporated into future space missions.