Stations in Space: Our stepping stones to the stars (1960)

With an awesome cover, Stations in Space kicked off the 60s transition from fantasy to reality.

Cox, Donald. Illustrated by Kocher, W.A. Stations in Space: Our Stepping Stones to the Stars. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. (55 p.) 24 cm.

This one is full of excellent illustrations of the many varieties of space stations that had been proposed up to that time, both historic ideas and current.

1959-1962 marks a transition in these children's books as all the ideas of what space flight "might" look like get whittled down to what was actually funded and developed.

Space stations seemed a logical part of our transition to space but while many engineers and other theorists speculated on what the best shape was no one was sure what was workable. This book give a nice survey of the possibilities from donut to rotating hammer.

Unfortunately this time also is the some of the last images of space being for everyone. Soon after this only the few and proud were depicted being allowed into space. But this image of everyone boarding the great "space bus" is one of my favorites.