Book Review: The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook

Reviewed by: Allen G. Taylor

Title: The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook: A Pictorial History of Lunar Vehicles

Author: Robert Godwin

Format: Softcover

Pages: 224

Publisher: Apogee Books

Date: 2007

Retail Price: $36.95

ISBN: 978-1894959-69-8

 

This beautiful book would be a “coffee-table” book if only it was in a somewhat larger format and if it cost a lot more. Printed on high-quality glossy paper, every page contains illustrations and photos of a vast array of lunar vehicles, most of which have not been seen for over forty years.

Probably, like me, you have felt that you knew what vehicles were designed to take American astronauts to the Moon in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. There was:

* the mighty Saturn V rocket, which powered the moonship off Earth and sent it hurtling toward the Moon

* the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM), which ferried the astronauts between the Earth and the Moon

* the Lunar Module (LM), which landed on the Moon

* the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), which enabled astronauts on later lunar landing missions to rod around, kicking up a lot of lunar dust in the process

 I guess I should have known that these marvelous machines did not spring fully formed into the minds of brilliant engineers at NASA and its contractors. When President Kennedy set the nation on a course to the Moon in his electrifying speech in 1961, there were a lot of different ideas in circulation as to the best way to get there.

In this book, Godwin takes us from the first serious concept of a lunar landing mission in 1938 through a fascinating tour of over 200 proposed vehicles. Most of these never made it off the drawing board. Others made it to full scale mockups and even to functional prototypes.

There was intense competition among NASA suppliers for the lucrative contracts that were let to produce the lunar vehicles. Many vehicle designs were funded by NASA study contracts, while others were self-funded by would-be contractors.

We often think of the Saturn V as the largest, most powerful rocket ever built, or even conceived. However, in the early stages of the Apollo program, the much more powerful Nova design was the preferred contender for the Moon landing mission. It would be powerful enough to take off from Earth and fly directly to the Moon, land and then fly back to Earth. The much smaller Saturn V, on the other hand, was not nearly powerful enough to do that. Instead, the Saturn-based Apollo missions that actually flew used the lunar orbital rendezvous (LOR) technique to achieve the mission with a much less massive vehicle. Only the relatively light LM would actually land on the moon. The CSM that had the power to send the crew back to Earth stayed in lunar orbit while the LM made its sortie to the lunar surface.

In addition to the Nova alternative to the Saturn family of boosters, there were many different designs for command modules ranging from two to six astronauts in capacity, and a similar multiplicity of lunar landers. There were habitats designed to sustain astronauts for anywhere from five to 180 days on the lunar surface. There were roving vehicles with two wheels, four wheels, six wheels, or no wheels. There were flying platforms and backpack rockets. In hindsight, many of these proposed designs seem outlandish or just plain impractical. However, in many cases, they were important steps along the way to the designs that ultimately flew and made history.

The vision and creativity of the many engineers who developed these marvelous concepts is an inspiration that should guide the efforts of the current generation of design engineers, who even now are designing the lunar vehicles that will take American astronauts back to the Moon. It is a shame that much of the energy, enthusiasm, and creativity that went into the designs of all those Apollo era space vehicles came to an end with the termination of the program after the safe return of Apollo 17 to Earth. Those drawing board lunar habitats were never occupied. The mobile labs never investigated conditions at a distance from the lander. No astronaut ever blasted off the lunar surface with a backpack rocket. Perhaps the dreams of these designers will finally come to pass when we once again set foot on the Moon’s surface.

Robert Godwin has done a signal service in producing this book, which is clearly a labor of love. He calls the names of many who were instrumental in getting us to the Moon, but who are now all but forgotten. He brings to life with beautiful color illustrations, designs that until now have existed only as blueprints. He reminds us of what might have been—and of what might yet be.

© 2007 Allen G. Taylor

This review originally appeared on the Web site of the National Space Society, www.nss.org.