Out of the Cradle: Exploring the Frontiers Beyond Earth

by William K. Hartmann, Ron Miller, Pamela Lee

Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in the cradle forever, said Russian rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovksy in 1899; his words introduce this lavish and exhilarating vision of the time when man will not merely explore space, but actually live there.

In text, photographs, and nearly 100 dazzling paintings, Leaving the Cradle offers a startling vision of our future in space, from the authors of the Hugo-Award nominee The Grand Tour. The full-color paintings depict the human adventure in the cosmos, with habitats and colonies offering the comforts of home, way stations and solar collectors turning vastness into territory, and robot "astronauts" that allow the journey into the unknown go deeper and deeper.

With special attention to Mars, the Moon, and satellites Ganymede, Callisto, and Enceladus, Leaving the Cradle also features a wealth of supplementary photos, charts, and diagrams.

Genres: Science, Space

Hardcover

First published January 12, 1984

Reviews

[Matthew Kresal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1984, when NASA's Space Shuttle program was ramping up to its pre-Challenger disaster heights and the Cold War had hardened in the early Reagan years, Out of the Cradle still makes for engaging reading even after nearly forty years. That's in large part due to how beautifully illustrated through a combination of NASA photographs (many taken from the then-recent Voyager flybys of Jupiter and Saturn) and dozens of paintings by artists Ron Miller and Pamela Lee. Together was author William K. Hartmann, they present a grand vision of our solar system with the eventual human exploration and settlement beyond Earth. While some of what they painted, and indeed Hartmann's prose, has come to be superseded by data brought back by latter-day probes and by the much-changed political situation, much of the message shared by the author/artists remain relevant. Indeed, much of it feels prophetic, from water ice on the lunar surface to the debate over Pluto's status as a planet and talk of space tourism to climate change being a factor to push humanity further into space in search of resources.

Parts of it may have dated but much of its vision, in both prose but especially in its artwork, remains inspiring as we move into a new era of space flight.

[Valerie]

This book has a lot of loose ends. I've searched for years, for example, trying to find a book called ...And Don't Slam The Airlock!. People keep insisting that it's only a cartoon, but I think there was a book...

Anyway, this book has good pictures, and it's interesting reading--which is more than can be said of some related works.