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Shameless Plug (my book is out!)


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Hello everybody, I have an announcement which I hope the moderators will allow me to do.

 

Some of you may already know, but others are unaware that I have spent the better part of the past decade working on my first space history book for University of Nebraska Press. Well, the fruits of my labors are now out. I received my copy of "Outposts on the Frontier: a Fifty Year History of Space Stations" last week and several book stores locally also got it. This week, it looks like other vendors have received copies to sell as well. So if Space history (which includes some stuff on the USAF's Manned Orbiting Laboratory) interests you, go ahead and pick up a copy.

 

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Outposts-Frontier-Fifty-Year-Stations-Spaceflight/dp/0803222920
 

The Air Force Museum Store:

http://store.airforcemuseum.com/new/outposts-on-the-frontier-a-fifty-year-history-of-space-stations-100658.html

 

Barns and Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/outposts-on-the-frontier-jay-m-chladek/1125021035

 

and plenty of other vendors as well.

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Nice to hear! Congratulations on the book, which sounds extremely interesting. I thought I was more interested in the manned space vehicles themselves - and the moon programs - but now I realize my knowledge on the space stations is quite limited. Surely a lot of fascinating stuff on that field that most of us are not aware of. 

 

Also interesting to notice the coverage on Chelomei (as mentioned by some descriptions). In some books I've read he's almost considered as the bad guy of the story while the hero's part often went to Korolev. Certainly interesting to hear more of him, perhaps in another light.

 

I take there are at least some photos as well? 

 

 

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CONGRATULATIONS JAY!

This explains your absence, or at least, quite intermittent, posts on the Real Space forum.

 

I'll bet the book is chock full of good information ... I'll certainly take a peek at it!

 

 

Do you follow Amy from Vintage Space? She has some fun facts on the early space program ... 

 

 

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22 hours ago, janman said:

Also interesting to notice the coverage on Chelomei (as mentioned by some descriptions). In some books I've read he's almost considered as the bad guy of the story while the hero's part often went to Korolev. Certainly interesting to hear more of him, perhaps in another light.

 

I take there are at least some photos as well? 

 

 

 

Yes, I do have some photos and illustrations in the book. Not an earth shattering number due to the format, but there should be enough in there to keep the hardware junkie interested. I tell you though, I don't know if I want to see another official portrait of a dead Russian as long as I live. ;)

 

Yes, Vladimir Chelomei is heavily covered in this book since without Almaz, TKS and Proton, we would not have had Salyut, Mir or the ISS as the Chelomei DNA is still in use today with the Zvezda and Zarya modules. I probably paint him more as a "hero" in my text as he really had to work hard against the system to get where he did and he came up with some great innovations along the way. He was at least astute enough to recruit allies in high places to get his designs flying and yes that did rub some people the wrong way, such as Dimitry Ustinov. But at the same time too, he was considered an outsider from day one and had to fight for acceptance when the USSR as a whole was more concerned with the development of ICBMs to counter the west than scoring achievements in spaceflight. Ustinov already lost one main rocket developer (Korolev) to the siren song of spaceflight, he wasn't about to lose another. 

 

Don't get me wrong, Korolev got the Soviet space program off the ground. But the reasons for the failure of the N1 booster and the lunar program probably had more to do with Korolev's design philosophy than with his premature death. I don't know if the N1 would have worked all that well even if Korolev was around to manage it when hardware was ready to fly.

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Ohh, off to add that baby to the wish list!
Be a month or tow before I can acquire it, already spent this month's book budget/
Have Revell's 1/144 scale ISS yet to begin, for a couple years now!
My health is a mess and that makes that suitcase of a box a bit intimidating. 

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Thanks guys,

 

It is an honor. There was one thing that popped up as being slightly incorrect after the book's publication (the reason for the scrubbing of the flight of Soyuz 2, which was not due to an electrical storm, but rather because Soyuz 1 had so many problems and it was to be the primary rendezvous and docking vehicle for that mission), but that is one of the disadvantages of not being able to speak Russian or the budget to fly over and dig through their archives. I tried to do my absolute best on the research to get it as right as I could.

 

There is another aerospace book I wish to write on lifting bodies. I am hopeful that the experience I gained on researching and writing this one will help me to get the publisher I want to write for onboard with it, but we shall see. Who would have thought writing model building articles for the local newsletter and web kit reviews all those years ago would ultimately have lead to this? But it did and so far it has been an interesting ride.

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23 hours ago, Jay Chladek said:

There is another aerospace book I wish to write on lifting bodies.

Welcome!  Oh, do it do it do it! Would be fun to have as inspiration for designing freelance sci-fi ships I'll probably never build but could well use in a story.

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And to think, I knew you before you were famous. I want my copy signed. 

 

I hope it exceeds all your expectations, and that you do start on the lifting body project soon. See you in a couple weeks at Nats. 

 

Rick L. 

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