The NASA Archives. 60 Years in Space

Product Description

On October 1, 1958, the world’s first civilian space agency opened for business as an emergency response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik a year earlier. Within a decade, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, universally known as NASA, had evolved from modest research teams experimenting with small converted rockets into one of the greatest technological and managerial enterprises ever known, capable of sending people to the Moon aboard gigantic rockets and of dispatching robot explorers to Venus, Mars, and worlds far beyond. In spite of occasional, tragic setbacks in NASA’s history, the Apollo lunar landing project remains a byword for American ingenuity; the winged space shuttles spearheaded the International Space Station and a dazzling array of astronomical satellites and robotic landers, and Earth observation programs have transformed our understanding of the cosmos and our home world’s fragile place within it.

Throughout NASA’s 60-year history, images have played a central role. Who today is not familiar with the Hubble Space Telescope’s mesmerizing views of the universe or the pin-sharp panoramas of Mars from NASA’s surface rovers? And who could forget the photographs of the first men walking on the Moon?

Researched with the collaboration of NASA, this collection gathers more than 400 historic photographs and rare concept renderings, scanned and remastered using the latest technology and reproduced in extra-large size. Texts by science and technology journalist Piers Bizony, former NASA chief historian Roger Launius, and best-selling Apollo historian Andrew Chaikin―and an extensive mission checklist documenting the key human and robotic missions―round out this comprehensive exploration of NASA, from its earliest days to its current development of new space systems for the future.The NASA Archives is more than just a fascinating pictorial history of the U.S. space program. It is also a profound meditation on why we choose to explore space and how we will carry on this grandest of all adventures in the years to come.

Top Reviews

Must Have for NASA Enthusiasts
by Amazon Customer (5 out of 5 stars)
August 21, 2019

In short, this coffee table sized book is incredible and a MUST-HAVE item for NASA enthusiasts. If you already own several NASA history books full of photos like I do, trust me-this one's different and you won't regret purchasing it.

The book is artful in and of itself. Beautifully bound, smooth pages with crisp color, excellent binding, sleek design-the quality is reflected in the price. The large format and black page background, along with the photo placement, size, and paper quality provides a very aesthetically pleasing experience. It's the type of book you want to set aside time to look through and get absorbed by. Several of the photos were new to me. Many other books have repeats of the same photos, but this book features many I would consider somewhat uncommon and "archival" (hence the title). I'm a space artist and this is excellent reference material for not just historical and design accuracy, but inspiration.

The book comes in its own decorative, carrying case-type cardboard box (like many other oversized photo volumes), is shrink wrapped inside the box (if New), and the book is constructed beautifully. I'm not totally sure what I will do with the box, but it's good for storing the book safely and I suppose would help maintain paper quality over many decades. This book is worth the price.
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WONDERFUL MEMORIES.OF SPACE CONQUEST
by AMC Reviews (5 out of 5 stars)
May 23, 2019

This gem is a major addition to my select choice of books illustrating the greatest of times, NASA at it's best!

AMC
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This Is One Big Book
by Billinalaska (5 out of 5 stars)
June 24, 2019

A beautiful collection of photos of the history of the space program. Sorry to say I'm old enough to remember when MOST of the early photos were in the evening news! But this is a great book for any history buff who grew up watching Cronkite or Huntley and Brinkley reporting on launches from Cape Canaveral. I was 17 when the Eagle landed on the moon - so this book is something of a chronicle of time that represents some of the best of the happenings in my life. America needs another effort such as this to pull us together again.
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Just Awesome
by Brian Steele (5 out of 5 stars)
July 14, 2019

This book is done is such high quality fashion that I was in awe of the production value alone. The Essays and photos from NASA's history are even better than expected. I been a big fan of the space program and this book is a great tribute to the men and women of NASA. The books gives us a look at all the people (astronauts, computer programmers, Mathematicians who figured out the path) who got man to the moon and made the Voyager space program and more. F
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Fantastic photos!
by E J C (5 out of 5 stars)
April 27, 2019

I bought one for a friend , I opened the box, looked at the book. It is so fantastic, I ordered another for me. Fantastic photos and stories.
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A Massive Achievement
by George (5 out of 5 stars)
March 23, 2019

Like the other reviewers, I have been a space buff since watching Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight (I was very upset at the time that the replays of the flight preempted my watching the latest Lone Ranger and Superman episodes). I have several large, hardcover books (such as Moonfire, also by Taschen), but nothing like this! The book is HEAVY-must weigh 10-15 lbs. and comes in a box with a carrying handle. I won't go into more details about opening or the description of the book as another reviewers have more ably done that. Suffice to say, the book is magnificent-worth the cost. For any serious fan of the space program, you can't go wrong having this book in your collection.
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Beautiful book
by H. M. Gold (5 out of 5 stars)
February 28, 2019

I have looked at many books of photographs from Apollo. The pictures in this book are spectacular.
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Massive book filled with incredible quality photographs and information!
by Quint Larson (5 out of 5 stars)
February 17, 2019

Was really thrilled to find this book was double boxed and came in a protective sleeve, arrived in perfect condition. The book itself is massive and is of quality construction. All the photographs are incredible. Can't wait to sit down and read every page.
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Incredibe documentation of NASA's history in word and in photography!!
by redmanpianoman (5 out of 5 stars)
March 20, 2019

Informational in historical and present day overview of NASA from it humble beginnings to landing Men on the Moon and beyond......!!! 5+ stars
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Gloriously Massive Book
by T.B. (5 out of 5 stars)
February 19, 2019

A quick bit of background...

I am a long time space exploration aficionado, have many books mostly to do with manned spaceflight in the 1960's. I have several other recent comparable large hard cover books featuring the manned space program including Moonshots, Moonfire, Full Moon and Apollo VII-XVII.

The book....

Starting with how this book is packaged - it literally comes (from Amazon anyway) triple boxed. You open the Amazon book, there's a slightly smaller book that is the shipping box for the book. You open that box, the book is inside a shrink-wrapped illustrated carrying case style box complete with handle typical for the largest, most lavish Taschen books. Carefully open the carrying case and this huge 15lb book inside is also shrink-wrapped. Everything graphically about this book is over-the-top. The dust cover and paper stock is thick semi-gloss paper, almost card stock. The dust cover and the chapter break photos have silver ink printing to accentuate the 4 color images. The actual book cover is an embossed photo of Buzz Aldrin's boot print on the lunar surface. The text is fairly large and easy to read. Binding, printing and overall quality of the photos and other images included is outstanding. Perhaps fortunately due to practicality issues, there's no fold-out spreads. This is *not* a book you can cradle in your lap and read, it's just too big and heavy.

From a content standpoint, this book gives a very broad overview of American space program in a mostly chronological way. Informatively, this is the kind of book tailored more towards the casual space exploration fan. For the die-hard space enthusiast, almost all the photographs are fairly common, including iconic photos such as Ed White's spacewalk to the Apollo 11 moonwalk images to classic shuttle/spacewalk, ISS and of course, beautiful Hubble deep space photographs. There's also a few illustrations of hardware, missions, etc. The big draw here is the sheer size (most are full page images) and quality of the images included. IMO, I think content-wise, for so-called coffee table sized photo books, Moonshots and (the original full size HC) Full Moon books are a bit better and go a little more in depth but that is in large part because those book focus on the Apollo program itself. But big as those books are, they are physically dwarfed by "The NASA Archives."

One thing I would caution potential buyers - be very careful when putting the book back in it's case and closing the top. It's very easy to catch the edge of and accidentally damaging the top of the dust cover.

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