Description
C. S. Hammond & Co., Maplewood, New Jersey, Published [No date: circa 1963-1965]. Folded pictorial wall chart printed on one side, approximately 46 x 97 cm unfolded; printed in full color throughout.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
Turn the pages with the arrows, keyboard, or a swipe.
Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Good condition. Several small slits at the intersections of the folds and some color loss along the center fold. Colors remain bright and saturated. Verso blank. Pictorial chart of mid-century American space ambitions, with a large central illustration of the solar system (titled "THE SOLAR SYSTEM"), keyed to the orbits of the planets and the Earth's moon. Surrounded by panels and inset illustrations of contemporary and proposed NASA spacecraft and missions: the Lunar Excursion Module (Project Apollo), Surveyor lunar lander, Mariner planetary probe, Voyager Mars mission (the 1960s JPL program, not the later 1977 Voyagers), Nimbus weather satellite, Manned Orbiting Space Base, Mars Expedition Spacecraft, Empire interplanetary craft, Moon Ship of the Future, Advanced Lunar Landing, Lunar Logistics Vehicles, and a full-figure astronaut in space suit. Smaller panels along the left margin show imagined views from other worlds: the low-temperature landscape of Mercury, the clouded atmosphere of Venus, the deserts of Mars, the atmosphere of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, and the Sun as seen from the surface of Pluto. The right margin carries a "Facts About Our Family of Planets" panel with the nine planets (then including Pluto) plus the Moon, each illustrated with planet image, an astronaut figure showing relative weight and jump height for that body, and tabular data on mean distance from the Sun, period of revolution, period of rotation, equatorial diameter, escape velocity, and minimum and maximum distance from Earth. A separate "About This Space Chart" panel notes that the astronomical data comes from leading U.S. observatories and includes findings of recent space probes, and that all spacecraft illustrations are derived from plans then in development by NASA or engineering proposals submitted by aero-space industries for future NASA projects. Imprint reads "C. S. Hammond & Co., Maplewood, N. J. Printed in U.S.A." The publication is undated; references to Project Apollo, the Lunar Excursion Module, Surveyor, and the Nimbus weather satellite (the last first launched August 1964) place it in the early to mid 1960s.