Jan. 28 marked the 20th anniversary of the day the nation mourned the space shuttle Challenger tragedy. As such, we recommend Dream of Spaceflight, Wyn Wachhort’s essay collection considered a must-read for aficionados of physical sciences, American literature, and modern European and American history.

Paperback, 176pp

Perseus Publishing, May 2001

ISBN-13: 0306810484

Barnes & Noble online price: $13.95

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SYNOPSIS

FROM THE PUBLISHER
First time in paperback: In the tradition of Loren Eisley — “[A] beautifully written book” (Sir Arthur C. Clarke) on the human drive to explore space.

One of few truly gifted essayists who have turned their talents to science, Wyn Wachhorst here fashions a luminous meditation on the meaning of space exploration from a montage of images and reflections on humanity’s dream of spaceflight. In a survey of major figures from Johannes Kepler to Wernher von Braun, he sees in the rise of spaceflight a metaphor of modern history as a recurrent story of transformation and rebirth. Other essays offer new perspectives on the nature of wonder, recall the romantic vision of the decades prior to Sputnik (“nostalgia for a bygone future”), and look at the larger meaning of the moon landing, seeing in spaceflight not only a spiritual quest in the broadest sense of the word, but a cure for the withered capacity for wonder that afflicts the postmodern mind.

Author Biography: Wyn Wachhorst earned his Ph.D. in American history from Stanford University and has taught history and American Studies at the University of California and San Jose State. He is the author of Thomas Alva Edison: An American Myth. He lives in Atherton, California.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly
“Spaceflight is a spiritual quest in the broadest sense, one promising a revitalization of humanity.” Wachhorst’s brief, lyrical essays trace an enraptured and sometimes informative triad of historical trajectories; each of his five chapters covers space travel as idea and imagination (a strand in the history of science fiction); space travel as scientific accomplishment (part of the history of technology); and space travel as a motif in Wachhorst’s own life and mind (a kind of autobiography). Moving from the 1500s to the year 2000, Wachhorst covers the planetary voyages of 17th-century proto-SF; the cash-strapped early rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard; 1940s architect and artist Chesley Bonnestell, who painted vivid, realistic space flights and planetary surfaces; the film Destination Moon, on which Bonnestell collaborated with producer George Pal and Robert A. Heinlein; and, for most of the book’s last half, the space program itself. At the time, the Apollo program met with both admiration and deprecation. Wachhorst wants to exult it anew, and his final agenda is philosophical and polemical, as well as literary. He believes that human beings should, can and will travel back to the planets or the stars in order to realize our higher nature, and that to abandon space travel would represent an ultimate “failure of nerve.” Wachhorst’s prose can be as wondrously compact as a moon rock–or as glowingly gaseous as the Crab Nebula; readers who already share his enthusiasms may wish he had given more space to facts, descriptions and arguments, while those who remain of two minds about the final frontier may learn more–and find more sheer wonder–in Carl Sagan’s writings. Agents, Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews
American historian Wachhorst waxes lyrical on the drive to explore space, seeing in it a mirror of humanity’s profoundest aspirations and noblest urges. He surveys major figures from Johannes Kepler to Werher von Braun, recalls the romantic decades before Sputnik, looks at the moon landing as a signature event, suggests that evolution and exploration are inseparable, and finds spaceflight to be a cure for the withered postmodern capacity for wonder. He appends a chronology of space exploration. Two of the five essays have appeared in ; no information is provided about previous publication. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Internet Book Watch
These essays on science and technology provide four reflections on spaceflight and its historical meaning, examining the romance and science of space events and recalling the signature events which mark space achievements. An excellent set of literary reflections on the importance of space discoveries on the human psyche.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

“This beautiful book inspires the reader to understand what really drives spacefaring: something in the human spirit that causes us to do science and that deep down knows the human seed must be scattered widely away from its birthplace.”
— Hugh Downs

“This beautifully written book should silence the critics who imagine that the exploration of space is merely a matter of engineering and politics. The impulse which took us to the moon, and will soon lead us to far more distant worlds, is primarily a spiritual one. A thousand years from now, our century may be remembered only for the fact that it was the one in which we became a space-faring species.”
— Arthur C. Clarke

“I found the book thought-provoking, rich in color and a fertile place to imagine, expressing the fundamental need to reach beyond ourselves and once again to become the explorer.”
— Gene Kranz