Space Odyssey by Serge Brunier, Cambridge University Press, 拢25, ISBN 0521813565
鈥淭oday, in the year 2002, four hundred men and women have been sent into space. These astronauts share the same sweet melancholy and yearning as Aldrin and Armstrong when they were so harshly brought back to Earth 鈥︹��
This photographic picture book on space exploration spans the decades from the Apollo Moon landings to the International Space Station. Serge Brunier is a French journalist. His prose, reliant on secondary sources, is sometimes awkwardly translated.
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As for the images, the Apollo pictures are over-familiar. But there are good sequences covering Mir, the ISS and modern-day Russian launch operations in Kazakhstan, providing a nice balance to the usual American domination. The resolution isn鈥檛 always of the quality you might expect, however. The appendices include a chart of French astronautic feats, always handy down the pub. But Brunier drops a clanger by referring to Englishman Michael Foale as an American.