Let's go on a space trip (1963)

Chester, Michael. Illustrated by Coggins, Jack. Let's Go on a Space Trip. New York: GP Putnam's Sons. (48 p.) 21 cm.











This book was a standard on the school library book shelves of the 1960s. Part of the "Let's go on a..." series which took children to different occupations. This let children imagine what it would be like to be an astronaut.






Jack Coggins was an important illustrator of children's books and did the illustrations for the first "real" children's book about space flight Rockets, Jets, Guided Missiles, and Space Ships (1951).












This illustration of a firey re-entry of a capsule is especially vivid. It was books like these that created my love of space flight and my dreams of space.

You can see that the drawings were adapted from some of the very early Apollo designs. We were not always sure what the future would really look like but these books showed we were sure we would get there.