posted 11-06-2008 09:34 AM               

The first moon landing in July 1969 captured the imagination of the world as no subsequent "space spectacular" has. Forty years later, space historian Piers Bizony has produced a stunning visual record of this unparalleled mission. Drawing on high-resolution images from the entire suite of Apollo 11's on-board film magazines, the book presents a complete picture of the mission: the launch, the astronauts' lives inside the spacecraft, the landing and moon walk, and finally the return to earth to worldwide acclaim. Accompanying these remarkable images, many published here for the first time, is Bizony's fascinating essay on the lasting cultural and emotional impact of the mission. Quotes from astronauts, scientists, and literary commentators add an extra dimension to Bizony's account.

Apollo 11 may have happened a long time ago, Bizony remarks, but it casts an important shadow over today's generation. Can we live up to it and learn from it -- or even repeat its achievements with new spacecraft? However tempting it might be to assume that our advanced modern society could go back to the moon, it is an unavoidable fact, as this book makes clear, that Apollo 11 was an event that may never be replayed. One Giant Leap gives modern readers the information and perspective for thinking about Apollo 11 and space exploration in general in an entirely new way.

• Hardcover: 160 pages
  
• Publisher: Zenith Press; First edition (May 15, 2009)
  
• ISBN-10: 0760337101
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0760337103

posted 05-08-2009 09:12 AM               

Flipping through the book, this looks to be a really nice coffee-sized table book - not sure the chapter about Orion is well-suited but...

So, Ed, how come some photos are blurred/out-of-focus:

• crew leaving for the launch pad (p91)
  
• a shot of Armstrong in mid-flight (p101, 107)

posted 05-14-2009 11:55 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by heng44:
I note that Piers Bizony has won the race for the Apollo 11 anniversary books. Plenty more to follow...

---

posted 05-14-2009 11:37 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by heng44:
Just received my copy today. As I suspected, one or two photos are out-of-focus because the originals are. Nothing you can do about that.

---

quote:

---

I note that Piers Bizony has won the race for the Apollo 11 anniversary books. Plenty more to follow...

---

posted 05-26-2009 09:23 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by cspg:
I never questioned that the originals were out of focus, just wondering why they were: astronauts were in a rush?

---

Part of that reason is that the crew weren't necessarily good photographers: they were, after all, pilots preoccupied with the challenge of getting to the Moon and back, and photography held a correspondingly low priority, particularly beyond the scientific and technical documentation of the Moon and their spacecraft. "Many shots, and especially those taken inside the spacecraft," Bizony writes, "are blurry, under-exposed, or so random in the choice of subject matter that they can only have resulted from the shutter button being pressed by accident."

Bizony claims to have more images from the mission than any other "mass-market publication". And, as he warned, some of dozens of pictures in the book are blurry or poorly composed. Yet the images are fascinating and remarkable nonetheless: those technical imperfections make them all the more vivid and real, a reminder that they are documentation by astronauts who were only secondarily -- at best -- photographers.