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Black Friday discounts – 33% and 66% discount

By Gurbir Dated: November 17, 2022 Leave a Comment

Use the voucher codes below

BF2022_virtual for 66% discount on all ebooks
BF2022_physical for 33% discount on all paperback and hardback

1. Select the appropriate format (ebook or hard/paperback) or Ebook.
2. Add to basket
3. View the basket and enter one of the two voucher codes

Valid until midnight on 3oth November 2022. Only via the links below


Yuri Gagarin in London and Manchester
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Hardback1-100x150.jpg
The Indian Space Programme

India’s Forgotten Rocket Pioneer

Leslie Johnson – My Personal History of The British Interplanetary Society 1933 – 1937 Liverpool

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New Book – Atlas of Space Rocket Launch Sites

By Gurbir Dated: September 13, 2022 Leave a Comment

ISBN 978-3-86922-758-0
Size 240 x 300 mm
272 pages
500 images
Index
Glossary
Hardcover

** Description and look-inside below **

Available from: dom-publishers.com, www.amazon.com, www.freytagberndt.com, www.mondadoristore.it, www.lehmanns.de and www.abebooks.co.uk – a variety of suppliers at many lower prices.

Learn more from podcasts: New Space India, The Spaceshow and Aviation-Xtended

Book Reviews: www.wallpaper.com, www.raumfahrer.net, flugundzeit.blog, www.ivorypress.com and collectspace.com

To purchase signed copies directly from the authors contact Brian Harvey or Gurbir Singh


The book describes primary launch sites around the world including some that are historically significant but no longer operating (e.g Peenamunde) as well as the new kids on the block (e.g Kodiak).

The book is edited by Paul Meuser who has written the foreword and sourced most of the 500 or so majestic photos of launch sites and their environments. The majority of the text is authored by Dublin-based author Brian Harvey. A prodigious writer who has been writing on space programs of numerous countries since the 1970s. Katrin Soschinski designed stunning maps, the foundation of any atlas.

Copy of the back text page and a few sample pages from the book in the slide show below. These sample pages can be downloaded here albeit the quality is way inferior to the original.


Back page text

The machines that orbit our planet live in a void environment–
however, space travel itself does not exist in a vacuum. Traveling
to space is an immense effort of humans and machines, taking
not just ‘a small step for a man’ but leaving a huge carbon
footprint in the process. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift
in which private companies and leadership figures in the form of
Billionaires are re-popularizing space travel to an extent not seen
since the space race of the USSR and USA. Space exists isolated
from the place that births its mechanical and a few select human
inhabitants. Thus we tend to forget that every single thing that
exits our atmosphere takes with it more than just its own weight
of materials when it departs our fragile blue marble.

This book offers a unique look at the physical footprints of earth’s
launch sites. With most places hidden away in jungles, deserts, or
amidst the Central Asian steppes, these places exist for the most
part out of the eye of the general public. With satellites facilitating
our modern society and a modern space age ever-present in today’s
news cycle, it is now more important than ever to think about the
imprint these undertakings leave on earth. To begin to answer
the new socio-economic questions raised by our rapid expansion
into the void, we need to look no further than follow the cracks in
the concrete of our planetary launch sites. The rusty train tracks
leading to the pad break the pristine and sterile looks of space, and
reopen our eyes to the realities of space exploration.

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New Book – Leslie Johnson’s memoir. My Personal History of The British Interplanetary Society – Liverpool 1933 to 1937

By Gurbir Dated: May 20, 2022 Leave a Comment

My Personal History of 
The British Interplanetary Society 
1933 – 1937 Liverpool

Leslie Johnson wrote this manuscript between 1974 and 1979. It records the BIS story during the Liverpool years. It includes his reflections on their collective 1930’s dream realised in 1969 – the landing on the Moon of Apollo 11. This book (paperback and ebook) includes a foreword from his daughter Pam Reid, an introduction and an epilogue from me. An excerpt from my epilogue is below and “look inside” images of the book, at the bottom.

Most of the early BIS members were writers. Post-war members included Carl Sagan, Eric Burgess, Olaf Stapledon, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Heinlein and Patrick Moore. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Willy Ley and Isaac Asimov were considered “Astrofuturists”.⁠ They were all scientifically literate, and scientific principles guided their writings. Many of the visions they imagined then underpin our 21st-century society today. For example, the focus of Clarke’s celebrated 1945 paper, ‘Extraterrestrial Relays’, is now deployed in communication satellites that provide communication services anytime, anywhere between anyone on Earth. In 1971, Clarke was invited by the US State Department for the signing of the 80-nation INTELSAT (International Telecommunication Satellite Organisation) agreement. He concluded his speech by saying, “you have just signed far more than just another intergovernmental agreement. You have just signed a first draft of the Articles of Federation of the United States of Earth”.⁠ By chance, in 1975, when he was living in Sri Lanka, Clarke was one of the first to have a private satellite link at home.⁠

In his 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke imagined a human society living in colonies amongst the solar system’s planets. Rather than a World State, he imagined a United-Nations-like body but for all the colonies of the Solar System. He called it United Planets and based its headquarters on the Moon. Johnson, Cleator, Clarke and all their contemporary writers were innately optimistic and shared principles of Humanism. In October 1939, Cleator described war as the “supreme and ultimate imbecility of the human species”.⁠ Rather than undermining their pre-war naive desire for a utopian future for humanity, their first-hand experiences of war vindicated their belief in a peaceful future for a united human race empowered by spaceflight.
The interplanetary community wrote about a future in which their hopes and wishes of the 1930s would be an everyday reality. A utopian vision where space technology could deliver education, fresh food, medical needs, social interactions and intellectual fulfilment. Much of the imagined technology has arrived, but these benefits are not yet equally distributed to all the people on the planet. That technology allows more people to live longer, healthier lives for the first time in human history. Still, poverty, discrimination and gross inequality persist within and between nations.⁠

An unassuming young man from Liverpool, born in the year the First World War started, Leslie Johnson not only lived through a remarkable period in history but also made a personal contribution to it. As a teenager, he established the Universal Science Circle. He does not write about the thought processes that led him to create it. He did not explicitly express his aspirations for a peaceful world united by a single international language powered by modern technology. But all his contributions convey that vision. It is a vision far from being realised, but incremental progress towards it continues to be made. 

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Public Talk – Rocket Societies in Liverpool and Manchester in the 1930s

By Gurbir Dated: March 10, 2022 Leave a Comment

Manchester and Liverpool share a unique history in the development of rocket technology. The desire for spaceflight was promoted by the British Interplanetary Society, founded in Liverpool in 1933 and the Manchester Interplanetary Society in 1936.

They were not unique. Similar societies existed in Germany, Austria, the USA and the USA. There was even a one-man effort in 1934 in India.

In a public talk on Thursday evening 24th March, I will talk about the rise of these societies, the individuals who established them, the impact of World War Two on the development of rocketry after that led to the emergence of the Space Age – Sputnik in 1957 and first human spaceflight, Yuri Gagarin in 1961.

Some of the people who I will speak about are Phil Cleator and Leslie Johnson (founders of the British Interplanetary Society in Liverpool) Eric Burgess (founder of the Manchester Interplanetary Society), Willy Ley (a key player in German rocket society). As well as some early BIS members including Patrick Moore, Arthur C Clarke and Carl Sagan.

The event is organised by the Keighley Astronomical Society and take place in Keighley, Yorkshire starting at 7pm on Thursday 24th March 2022.

BIS HQ in London
MIS Publication – The Astronaut 1937
MIS Member
Stanley Davis
Members of the Manchester Interplanetary Society
Early meeting of the BIS
Plaque unveiled by Tony Lloyde MP
14 May 2012
Philip Turner
his farther Harry Turner was a member of the MIS
From L to R – Tony Cross, Tony Llyode MP, Frank O’Rourke and Alistair Scott
Pioneer Plaque
Inspired by Eric Burgess

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