Skylab: America's First Space Station (1974)

Despite my best intentions it has been a long time since my last post. So today it is another wonderful pop-up book from the 1970s.

Peterson, Gail Mahan. Iillustrations by Carl Cassler. Paper mechanics by Howard Lohnes. Skylab--America's First Space Station, A Hallmark Pop-Up Book.  Mo: Hallmark Children's Editions. (20p.) 17 x 24 cm.

Full of fascinating facts about Skylab, America's first space station, its mission and the dramatic problems the first astronaut team had to solve. Excellent movables: three large double-page pop-ups, six tab-mechanicals and threedouble-sided turn-wheels. “Hallmark Pop-Up Book series.”

As always it is hard to give the pop-ups justice, luckily most are "flatter" in this book.  I enjoy how the illustrations give the sense of floating in space in near-Earth orbit.

Also you get a good sense of what it was like to stand at Cape Kennedy and watch a launch.

To some people this space station seemed a disappointment for its size and uses, however for some of this seemed really cool. someone was living in orbit over our heads. The films of them bouncing around inside an empty rocket fuel tank made space travel seemer much more than just traveling in a closed space for days at a time. These astronauts got to move around and tumble and "fly" through the air.

 We needed an outpost in space then and I am glad they could shoehorn the Saturn boosters into doing such a neat set of test flights.