30-Second Space Travel: 50 key ideas, inventions, and destinations that have inspired humanity toward the heavens

by Charles Liu, Karen Masters, Allen Liu

As Space X works to reduce the barriers of access to space and Virgin Galactic forges a path to commercial spaceflight for the masses, we have begun to cross the realms of science fiction into the reality of humans viewing the cosmos with their own eyes. Part of an internationally bestselling series, 30-Second Space Travel sees a team of expert astronomers hand-pick the 50 most exciting topics and essential concepts in the field of space exploration and break down each subject into an easily accessible summary that takes just half a minute to understand. Beginning with Galileo and the early telescope explorers of the Renaissance, via the physics of orbital mechanics and the Apollo and Sputnik missions of the Space Race, and on to a future of space tourism and planetary colonisation, this book will open up a whole universe of space travel and leave you eager to research the field in more depth.

289 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 29, 2021

About the author

Charles Tsun-Chu Liu is an American astronomer and astronomy educator. His research interests include merging and colliding galaxies, active galactic nuclei, and the star formation history of the universe. Liu is one of the original team members of the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), the largest contiguous deep field ever observed with the Hubble Space Telescope. He is a former director of the William E. Macaulay Honors College and The Verrazano School at the City University of New York’s College of Staten Island. He currently serves as a professor of physics and astronomy at the College of Staten Island, and as President of the Astronomical Society of New York. In 2019, he was named a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.

Reviews

[Nicola Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this is the type of book I’d love to have as a permanent fixture to my shelf. It’s perfect for any ability, to learn more about space travel, our road there, what’s currently within our grasps and where we’re headed out into the stars.

It’s a greatly written book, concise and perfectly to the point yet informative and full of fantastic information on the subject of space travel. It was so easy and effortless to read and didn’t feel overwhelming or heavy as some non fiction can sometimes be. It also had a great little glossary of terms before each chapter with the definitions of the words you may come to meet in the following pages. The whole book was just so helpful in making sure you understood all that you read.

It was a perfectly balanced book and one that was very enjoyable to read. It’s the sort of book you can read multiple times, use as a reference, flick through or read cover to cover. It’s worth reading every single page for all the fantastic nuggets of information that are on each of its succinct pages. I also love the layout of the whole book and the little short biographies on each page mentioning notable people was also a great addition.

The illustrations and pictures in this book were just stunning too. They were beautiful to look at and really further added to the effortless ease of reading.

Definitely learnt a lot from this book and I really enjoyed reading!

I was lucky enough to read this book with thanks to the authors and publishers via NetGalley, to give my honest thoughts and review after reading.

[Achim Höfling · Rating 2 out of 5]

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