Satellite Books

Curtis Peebles, an aerospace historian affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, has written a book that serves as a good introduction to the early years of American satellite reconnaissance. Without going into too many details, the book does a good job of describing the different aspects of the program, and its ramifications. The book will probably appeal more to those who were involved in the Corona Project, or looking into it for a particular reason than to those looking for casual reading.

This book is a fascinating look at America's first spy satellites. The early history of them seems plausible, the author describes both the successes and failures of the program, the codewords and mission numbers are accurate, and the book offers tantalizing looks at Corona photography. The book has its humorous moments, especially when describing the "funnies". And it gives a respectable "hats off" to the photo interpreters who worked with it on a day-to-day basis. The book does all the hard working Corona personnel proud; they've been hidden far too long! Congratulations to everyone from Dr. Land to the Corona recovery teams and users to the author of this book!

Do you like spies? Do you like mysteries? If you do, read this book. IT is packed with fun facts and a history that will blow your mind!

This book brings together quite a bit of new information about early satellite imaging in general and Corona in particular. It covers many interesting political, technical, military and personal aspects of the subject. The author combines information already in the public domain with new information from sources who have spoken with him now that the program has officially come out of the "black world". It is heartily recommended for anyone interested in the development of military space technology but is also a fine source for those who are mainly interested in Cold War politics. Hats off to anyone reading this who was involved in Corona. You folks did a lot to make sure the good guys won!

Of the 3 books on this subject which I have so far read, this was the second book I obtained and read. The most accurate picture can be gained by having all three books (sorry, but more $ to Amazon, and you may tire of seeing certain images again).

Peebles' Corona book has more chapters on the human side of the recovery (mid-air capture, ++) and process (3 stages of interpretation, ++). Reading this latter part brings more meaning to McDonald's Appendices (mentioned below). [Most human story. The whole story is important cold war history.]

Day's book has a chapter on the Soviet Zenit program and launch vehicles lacking in the other books (++) and a few details not covered by either Peebles or McDonald.

The most technical, expensive, longest-delivery time, and most professional is McDonald's ASPRS book. A chapter details the Corona earth model (++, math). The appendices include redacted original reports (++) and some marginally reproduced space images (++). The book also has a pointer to the breast cancer X-ray ID which the NRO/CIA claim to have released. These will not be found in Peebles. [Most space images.]

Decent book of images found on Google Maps... Each image includes longitude and latitude so you can find them on Google... also has a link for a KML file that loads all the sites in the book plus some others into Google Earth... Worth the price...

This book was way more entertaining than I orpginally expected. The sights are really cool but the star of the book is the quirky, clever commentary. Not only do you get a description of what you are looking at, ther is usually a great "what if?" or "did you know?" story as well.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It makes great guest room reading material as there is a little something for everyone.

This is one of those books you see loitering near the cash register in book shops, which you pick up and on a casual flick through the pages buy it (wise folk, of course, note the title then order it cheaper online from Amazon).

I thought it was well worth the money. Now you can see a whole load of quirky shots of the planet that until recently really weren't possible and impressive quality, too. What I particularly liked was the concentration on the man-made world rather than the natural world. Here you can see a Stealth bomber on the runway at Edwards Air Force base, the Prophet Mosque, Medina, Saudi Arabia or hundreds of cars stored on a runway at RAF Bedford in England.

Mixed in with not normally seen photos there are plenty of offbeat sights that clearly would never be appreciated at ground level, like a huge rabbit on Mount Colleto Fava in Italy, designed by a bunch of artists from Vienna or a giant dead cowboy floating of the coast of Australia. I know that's a kind of vague location but all the images have precise co-ordinates on each page so you can find them yourself.

Although the book plugs Google Earth it might be worth checking out the same place on MSN Virtual World. In many cases both sites use the same image source. For instance both have the same scan of the world's tallest man-made structure the KVLY-TV mast at Blanchard, North Dakota shown on page 134. Factoid Time: the mast is 2063 feet high and the structure incorporates an electric elevator to allow (brave!) engineers to get to the top for periodic maintenance.

There is a spin-off to using the book because when you check out the sites on Google Earth you'll find that curiosity will get the better of you and something nearby will make you zoom in for a closer look and suddenly another hour has gone!

*** FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This book is a great compilation of photos and comments on them from the folks at Google Sightseeing, whose members pore over the maps on Google Earth and find some of the most unlikely and bizarre visual treats on the planet. Check it out and you'll be hooked!

My sister in law recommended this book and I love it. I love the photos and the captions. Quirky and fun. A great read in the bathroom.

I liked the book alright I would of liked to work on it als

The colored pictues are amazingly beautiful, and there are lots of them showing fine details of the US. The only thing you have to think about before buying this book is that they are not true-color photographs. The satellite digitally recorded infrared reflection from the earth surface. (Various objects reflect diferent infrared wavelengths). Since the infrared has no color, the colors had to be assigned to them. Even though you end up with very detailed pictures of spectacular colors, they are not their true colors. If you want a true-color (and even more beutiful) book of photograps from space, you should buy the book "Orbit" by National Geographic Society. It has true-color photographs taken by hand-held cameras of astronauts. I own both books and love them both, but if you have to choose one, "Orbit" is a clear winner..

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I've always been fascinated by satellite photos of earth, and I own
several books of them. This has better-quality reproduction than any
of mine, and is focussed on the USA, which is nice if you live here.
I might quibble with the large number of false-color photos -- but
then there are some nice side-by-side comparison shots too. The text
is so-so & bears signs of hasty and careless composition: New Orleans
is described as "five miles below sea level"; there's a "Vertical"
Assembly Building at NASA's Canaveral spaceport -- but the photos
are bright and clear. I'm particularly taken by one meandering-river
shot (p. 96), where you can almost see the meander-bends moving,
whipping back & forth across the flood plain. Or check out the
wonderful Ouachita ridge-&-valley shot at p.92-93. At least have a
look at a library copy -- I'll probably buy one if I see it at a good price.

review copyright 1999 by Peter D. Tillman
Consulting Geologist, Tucson & Santa Fe (USA)

This book contains over a hundred color photographs of the United States, some of which are digitally enhanced, taken by remote sensing satellites and space shuttle astronauts. A small amount of text and a location of a map accompanies each photograph.

The book presents most of the major geological features of the United States and has at least one photograph from each state. As someone who has traveled and lived in many places in the USA, some of them quite remote, I was amazed to see what geological features I had overlooked. There are also a good number of photographs showing some of the major cities in America.

If you like good photography or geology, this book is definitely for you.

It has been a half century now since the United States government made its initial commitment to the space program. As a result of our involvement in space the lives of average Americans have been changed considerably over the past five decades. Fantastic new technologies that were simply unimaginable 50 years ago are now a part of our everyday lives. And people are living longer, healthier lives as a result of the medical advances spawned by the space race. To try to help put all of this in some kind of perspective Michael D'Antonio has come up with a terrific new book. Like an episode of the popular old TV series "Time Tunnel", "A Ball, A Dog, And A Monkey" carries us back to the year 1957 when it all began. It proves to be an fascinating and eye opening journey.
In "A Ball, A Dog, And A Monkey: 1957 - The Space Race Begins" Michael D'Antonio introduces us to many of the major players who were there at the very beginning of this fantastic voyage. Perhaps no one is more interesting or more controversial than one Wehrner von Braun. As a young boy growing up in Prussia, von Braun was obsessed with the notion of space travel. And as a young man, von Braun would become one of Nazi Germany's premier rocket experts. At the conclusion of World War II the United States recruited von Braun and a number of other German scientists to aid in the development of the U.S. space program. In addition, we also meet key people like James Van Allen, General J. Bruce Medaris and presidential advisor Herbert York who all made significant contributions to the cause in the earliest days of the space race. There is also quite a bit of information of the politics of outer space. You will learn who stepped up to support space exploration and who was skeptical. It was also a lot of fun to discover how veteran NBC news space corresepondant Jay Barbree came to be involved in covering the space program. As an upstart young reporter he was there at the very beginning and as far as I know is still covering the space program for NBC News to this day! D'Antonio also reveals what life was like for those who worked at Cape Canaveral in those early years. Many hardships were endured by those pioneering souls who toiled at the Cape back then and the families of these people had to make numerous sacrifices as well. We should all be very grateful! Finally, I was stunned to discover that the first satellite launched into space by the United States was a ball weighing just four pounds! Can you believe it?
"A Ball, A Dog, And A Monkey: 1957 - The Space Race Begins" grabbed my attention immediately and held it to the very end. Michael D'Antonio is a gifted writer who gives an honest assessment of just what was going on in this nation some fifty years ago. One of the more interesting books I have read in 2007. Highly recommended!

So now it had begun. The conquest of space, for which the prophets, Tsiolkovskij, Oberth, von Braun, Clarke, Gatland, Ley, Gartmann, Burgess and others had argued so long and so eloquently. Of course it was slightly disturbing that the Soviets were the first, after all, we had been waiting for Vanguard for a couple of years now. Floods of words have inundated the sea of printed pages since then. One might wonder what new there would be to be found in yet another book on the beginning of the Space Race.
Well, for anyone who lived through those years,it's nice to remember, and to partake of the reflections of others on those times. For those, the majority of readers, to whom all this is ancient history, it will be an illumination of the sentiments of a bygone age. It was really an quaint and different age, with different values, most of which we, tankfully, have left behind, an age that should stay bygone, and good riddance. Mr D'Antonio presents the actual events, as they happened, well, most of that is to be found elsewhere. Much of the reminiscenses also have been published before. So what then? There is, of course the possibility of aquiring all those books and articles, if you have the inclination, the means to do so - and the shelf room to accomodate it all. Here you have a representative digest of all that stuff, spiced with interwiews by the author, not to be found elsewhere, in all comprising a synthesis you won't find anywhere else. Interspaced with the luminaries and main actors of the drama we meet those so-called "ordinary" - more often than not not-so-ordinary - people, whose lifes were touched by all the strange things going on.
Sadly, we miss those stories that are still awaiting to be uncovered on the Soviet side, and the general world-picture is typically North American bipolar: US and "them others", i.e. people living beyond the sea. Still, it's a good read, you can feel the suspence, the dissappointment and the feeling of triumph, even though your own memories, or the history books, have given away the punch-lines of the story. I had to pause for sleep but got myself a scalding for bringing the book to table. It was all worth it.

I was in 9th grade for Vanguard and Explorer, but I would later come to work on Gemini and Apollo as an engineer at Kennedy. I remember studying the IGY in school.

This book does a great job of bring the fascinating history of the beginning of the space race alive, and I hated to put it down. There are a few factual/historical errors and typos, but nothing that seriously detracts from the content.

I really enjoyed the book, and learned quite a bit of new information. All in all, a very good read with fewer errors than I notice in most space histories.

The early history of the space race will probably seem a bit alien and strange for younger persons who know or remember only NASA's failures (amid some continuing triumphs). For anyone old enough to remember staring with wonder at Sputnik as it crossed the sky over their front yard shortly after October 4, 1957 (I was eleven years old and as it turns out, what we saw was its booster rocket behind the actual satellite), this book brings out the political and bureaucratic infighting in the U.S. military that occurred at the time, as well as the story of the Soviet engineers who pulled off the feat and who were carefully hidden from public view. This book is clearly written and is close to being a page turner. It combines narratives based on interviews with those who were involved in everything from getting U.S. rockets off the ground to those who scrambled to provide housing for those first coming to Cape Canaveral, with straight historical analysis and description of the era and just enough detail. Highly recommended whether you are old enough to remember Sputnik and want an account of what was going on you DIDN'T know about, or are younger and want a readable account of the early era of the "space race".

Jan presents a very concise and complete book on the intricate details involved with all aspects of GPS, from the GPS satellite signal structure itself to the applications of the Land Surveyor in implementing this technology. This book is a great learning tool for Land Surveyors interested in learning more about the who,what,where,and why's on GPS Surveying.

Jan, is a very talented individual. From his acting, to his recitals of Shakespeare, this book is a testament to his ability to distill the essence of a deeply scientific subject and reduce it to bite-size chunks of information, suitable for those lesser mortals.

Apart from being an all-round good bloke, Jan has done an excellent job and I would highly recommend it to all readers wanting a deeper understanding of this technology, without their eyes glazing over with complex formulae and math. Well done Jan.

I found Mr. Van Sickle's book to be very concisely written yet full of practical "how tos". The flow from concept to concept is well though out. He shows his vast experience and knowledge of the subject on nearly every page. There are however, some large scriveners errors which are too large to be considered typographical errors (sometimes a whole sentence or paragraph is unrecognizable). In some cases these errors detract greatly from the content since it hard to know what he is saying. One aspect of Mr. Van Sickle's style is his ability to explain a concept, albeit difficult for most to understand, using common words and phrases. Generally, I liked the book and would recommend it as a basic part of your GPS library. One should experience various aspects of a subject from all directions to be able to fully understand anything. I will confess to learning a number of things from Mr. Van Sickle's book mostly due to his easy literary style which I had not previously understood. I have used the book as a textbook for two semesters and will continue to do so. I only hope that there is a new corrected edition available soon.

I found Mr. Van Sickle's 2nd edition book to be an expansion, correction and update of the 1st edition (previously reviewed). The book now has nine chapters and includes a new one on "real-time". Various corrections and updates have been placed into print which were greatly needed. The book "boils down" GPS into its basic components and explains difficult aspects in a more understandable fashion. The new, larger illustrations are generally more easier to see and of a better quality than before. Mr. Van Sickle has added questions and answers at the end of each chapter making the book more useful in the classroom. Generally, I liked the new book and would recommend it as a basic part of your GPS/Surveying library. I intend to use the book as a textbook for my upcoming semester and I know that the students will like it as much as I have, especially with the new self-checking questions and answers at the end of each chapter.

I had to buy this book for a class I was taking, but was pleasantly suprised by the quality of information presented to me in such an appealing manner. The pictures are beautiful. It is definitely the sort of book worth saving to admire and use for reference in years to come.

I am very impressed with the text and production of this book. It's a full color glossy book with lots of detail and an objective look at Islam (and a bargain). Paul Lunde is to be commended for his work in trying to bridge the gap of understanding between Islam and the West. This is the kind of book you want to not only read once but keep in your bookshelf so you can refer to it and just enjoy going through it.

This is a most excellent introduction/resource on Islam.

It is superbly written; Lunde is never boring, always informative and treats matters with due respect and a deep understanding.

The book has an attractive page layout, with images that are relevant and increase the readers understanding and insight into Islam and Muslims.
I am amazed at how much information has been packed into this small volume.

The book is divided into two main parts; the first is a brief yet very deep overview of Islam. It covers topics such as Islamic beliefs, practices and the Qur'an. A quick but concentrated tour of Islamic history (till modern times) and Muslims contribution to art and science. Issues of modernity are also treated with wisdom and sensitivity.

The second part is a reference of Muslim countries (countries with Muslim majorities). The use of graphical layout and icons allows for a vast amount of information to be presented. Information on education, media, defence, economics, resources, politics, currency, important dates. It has Flags, maps, weakness and strengths ... and the list goes on.

It can be said with a certain degree of authority that there is not a single source, which may claim to have combined so much information under one cover as this book has. Hence, it is recommended that libraries specializing in the study of Middle East, West Asia, North Africa, Near East, Mediterranean, Orient, Arab world, Muslim World, Islam should rush to own this handy directory.

This book does a great job of discussing commercial satellite communications. It is up to date, and includes excellent industry examples and technical details. This book will fill in your knowledge gaps.

This book is very useful if you are trying to pave your way into the field of satellite communications.
You will later find out that the book can still serve you as a handy reference when you are already involved and experienced with satellite communications.

Get the newest version from Artech House publishers. It's up to date and very informative.

Bruce Elbert's Introduction to Satellite Communications is the very best starting point for learning the basics of communications by satellite. Its scope goes beyond generalities but deals with specific topics from the world of satellite. Well organized and readable, it is an excellent companion to Mr. Elbert's other book, The Satellite Communication Applications Handbook. Both are "must read" and "must have" references for engineers and non-technical types!

Satellite Down is a well-written story touching on themes of commercialism and its impact on both teen-agers and the world in general. The main character, good-looking high school senior Patrick Sheridan, is swept into a world where the superficial rule over the intelligent. We get to see the once well-mannered, religious, naive texas native who believes in hard work and real journalism be morphed and changed by ideas of beauty and success as a television news reporter. He learns more about himself and what he really believes in through his mistakes. By the end, he begins to think he had it all right in the first place. Rob Thomas, creator/staff writer of "Veronica Mars" and author of three other books, demonstrates his best work through this interesting and inticing novel that any person living in todays modern world can relate to. In a book with a plot centering on hollywood and the "evils" of commercialism, one would expect something generic and unimaginative. But this is a wonderful story that is not sugar coated but at the same time, is not too angry or too accusative. It does not set the blame on consumerism but on the inability of humans to resist. It is a relatively fast read that will leave you thinking.

I finished this book several days ago and find myself still thinking about it. I highly recommend it to teens and adults who want something they can mull over for a while, as well as those who simply want a good read.

My conclusions? I found it interesting that Thomas treats Patrick's disillusionment almost as a natural progression rather than a series of choices. Patrick doesn't seem to debate much about whether to do the things he does; he simply does them. Maybe living in Hollywood is like that for everyone--I've never been there--but I can't shake the feeling that this book tells us more about the author than it does the main character (no offense, Mr. Thomas). That's MHO; y'all read it and see if you agree.

Satellite Down is, quite simply, the best Young Adult novel of the year. Patrick Sheridan, the main character, is brilliantly captured at the exact moment in time when he comes to understand once and for all that life is not a free ride. His adventures in the tainted, corrupt, and vapid world of television news, both in front of and behind the camera, are right on the money. The knockout punch of Satellite Down, however, is Patrick's soul searching journey for his roots through the rugged Irish countryside during the latter part of the novel. It is, in a word, flawless. The final sixty pages do more than represent the best writing in Thomas' canon. The closing stands as one of the finest examples of writing in the Young Adult genre, period. While an entire cottage industry has evolved around catering to melodrama and tidy sitcom closure in teenage "literature", Satellite Down dares to wander down a different path. The path of truth. The truth of how awfully life can treat us sometimes. About how it can be difficult, and messy, and without concrete answers at certain points in our complicated, ever changing tenure on this planet. Few authors choose to wander down this path, and with good reason. The possibility of rejection is enormous when you write about the emotional trials of life, especially when you fail leave a pot of gold at journey's end. In past novels, Thomas has masterfully portrayed the language and the urban rituals of the age group he has adopted as his own. With Satellite Down, the author broadens his trajectory by unflinchingly portraying the ambiguities of growing up in an age of constant media bombardment and rootless family angst. Rob Thomas would have done a disservice to the reading public, and the adolescent reading public in particular, had he made the choice most authors would've - pulled a rabbit out of the hat to make everything all right on the last page. Thankfully for us all, Thomas did not. And even more thankfully, he is good company. Would Rumble Fish remain the same powerful allegory to the devistating nature of fate had S.E. Hinton herself ignored the Wheel of Fortune and saved the Motorcycle Boy? Would The Chocolate War be revered as a landmark testament to teenage cruelty if Jerry's resistance to the Vigils had ended with anything other than those shattering blows in the ring? Rob Thomas is one of the few individuals writing for adolescents today who could legitimately follow in the footsteps of those YA authors we have seen fit to canonize. Satellite Down is the next big step toward securing his place in that pantheon.

David Scoma

Patrick is the editor of his high school newspaper and he is looking forward to a career in journalism, so when he gets a chance to enter a contest to become a TV reporter for Classroom Direct, a national TV shoe beamed to school by satellite he jumps at the chance. He figures it's a long shot, so why bother telling his parents, they wouldn't let him leave his dusty Texas town anyway. But Patrick is selected and convinces his parents to let me go out to LA and build on a promising journalism career. After Patrick realizes no one read his application(he was selected on looks alone), he becomes disillusioned and ultimately runs away on a soul searching journey. The book ends with Patrick very cynical and leave you with just a mirror to take a look at yourself.

After the publication of _Rats Saw God_, I waited with greast anticipation for the new book by Thomas...after a few years have gone by, this book _Satellite Down_ has placed Thomas back on the top of he list of auhtors for teens. If you get a chance to listen to Johnny Heller narration of any of Thomas' books it's the perfect voice.

The Defense Satellite Program (DSP)-truly one of the most innocuous code names ever devised for a critical military program-arose in the earliest years of the space age as a means of detecting the launch of a rocket from anywhere in the world. With the development of ballistic missiles in the 1950s, for the first time in the history of the United States our two great oceans could not protect us from sustained attack and destruction. To warn against a Soviet ballistic missile attack, and thereby to allow time for the launch of a counterattack, the Department of Defense sponsored the development of satellites ringing the globe that would use infrared photographic technology to detect missile launches. The theory behind the system was that the heat signature from the rocket blast would be detected by satellites in space and then show up on infrared scopes at military monitoring posts. Through this process the time and place of launch, as well as the missile trajectory, could be ascertained within seconds of launch.

It was a brilliant concept but it took years for it to come to fruition. The first effort, Project MIDAS, experienced numerous technical problems, but finally reached a turning point in 1963 when MIDAS 7 detected the first missile launch from space. MIDAS confirmed the concept, and the DSP program, with first launch in 1970, has provided early warning of missile launches ever since. Through 1997 eighteen DSP satellites had been placed in orbit, not all of them operational of course at the same time.

Jeffrey T. Richelson's history of this program, "America's Space Sentinels," is an especially important and welcome addition to the literature of the military space program. It provides as comprehensive an understanding of this effort as is possible in the current environment, using a wealth of declassified documents to piece together this program's evolution from idea to implementation and operational life. It is, of course, not the final word on this subject because of still-classified materials that should one day be made available about DSP, but it represents a benchmark in the historiography.

Especially welcome is Richelson's discussion of DSP's employment in the post-cold war era. He provides an excellent overview of its use to detect Scud missile launches in the Gulf War of 1991. He also describes how it detected the test firing of a new Iranian missile in 1998 and its use in piecing together the details of airplane accidents, such as the September 1997 collision of American and German military aircraft off the Atlantic coast of Africa. He ends with a discussion of the follow-on missile launch detection program, the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), which is due to come on line at the end of the century.

From the time when DSP served as the backbone of the nation's strategic early warning system during the cold war through its continued use in the still very threatening climate of the 1990s to its replacement by a presumably more capable system, this book is an important contribution to the public's understanding of space-based military systems. It should be required reading for all who are interested in the strategic defense of the United States in the nuclear era.

This book gives an excellent overview of America's Missile Warning satellites, beginning with MIDAS in the 1960s and ending with SBIRS for the 21st Century. The information included in the text is more in-depth that the fact sheets given out by the United States Air Force.

Dr. Jeff Richelson has provided some of the greatest reads dealing with United States military satellite systems - "America's Secret Eyes in Space", "The US Intelligence Community", and now "America's Space Sentinels." This book covers the genesis and evolution of the US' space-based missile warning system, commonly known as DSP, or defense support program. Dr. Richelson takes us through the teething of MIDAS, Program 646, and DSP's early predecessors, in addition to its successors of ALERT and SBIRS.

One high point in the text is the information on SCUD missile launches during Operation Desert Storm. While the news media reported bits and pieces on the launches, Dr. Richelson gives us a "bird's eye" view of what crews in Colorado saw half-a-world away, and what their contribution did to the defense of the US troops in the desert.

The only downside to this book is its currency - This is a volume in definite need of updating due to the bringing online of the SBIRS constellation, the battles fought during the Clinton era about space systems and emerging technologies that have DSP/SBIRS ready for the scrap-heap. If you're a military space-nut like me, this needs to be in your library.

China is clearly one of the space players in this century. Her resources are ample, both regarding technical knowhow and intellectual power, there is an unfailing sense of the ultimate goal - manned presence outside the Earth, and the intermediate goals - using the space for earthly purposes, are well understood. The Chinese space programme dates from the fifties, when the US, to their ultimate regret, evicted one of the fine minds who, at that time, was busy pioneering American astronautics. Political unrest - to say the least - on and off threatened to derail the development of missile technology, launchers and satellite technology. The space leaders come through as steadfast in the turmoil of the times, and as the political leadership in China moved from revolutionary fervour onto controlled economic evolution, so the space programme has moved more steadily tovards orderly development. All this and more are presented in this book, which bears the Harvey hallmark of being well researched, lucidly expositioned and showing deep insight in the subject at hand. I read it as one reads a novel of suspence and mystery, it now occupies a honored place along my other reference litterature on space.
When, during the coming years, we await new Chinese exploits in space, we need the understanding put forth in this book on the Chinese approach to development. Harvey illustrates how, in face of adversities, the Chinese space leaders, like the proverbial turtle, contrive to move slowly but inexorably towards their goals, when the hares in and of the United States fritters away resources by jumping hither and yon. It may well be that the tortoise yet overtakes the hare, if not in a race to the surface of the Moon, then to the sands of Mars.

China is still a developing country. But it has the distinction of being only the third country to launch a human into space, after Russia and the US. Harvey tells of the arduous path that China took. There have been the driving forces of international prestige and the building of a credible nuclear deterrent. The latter has required the ability to launch missiles into space in a controlled manner.

Harvey has conducted impressive research into a subject still heavily shrouded in secrecy. He describes many successes made by the Chinese. But also failures. Though the reader should remember that Russia and America have had their share of disasters, including the loss of lives.

The text also shows that in recent years, the Chinese space program has increasingly turned to commercial applications. Notably satellite imaging of the earth and communications. This reflects China's massive growth, with the increased need for such tasks as better analysis of weather patterns for agriculture. Also, the space program has started to perform more scientific research. All of this is a good sign for the future, both for China and the rest of the world.

For those in the West with little overall knowlwdge of the Chinese space effort, this is the primer. The book provides a fun read through the preperations and efforts to launch the first Chinese human to space orbit. Brian Harvey provides very useful insight to those who are looking globally in the human quest for space access. The book provides hope that the third nation to launch humans to space will mature and take serious the rhetoric of building a space station, or better yet, a Chinese program to put humans on the Moon. Harvey's book would have been made better with utilization of color photos splashed about the book.