Space books! Get your space books! New space books you can get for Christmasby Dwayne A. Day
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Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story
by Jeffrey Kluger
The Gemini program was covered extensively in the 1960s while it was underway, but in the history books it was soon overshadowed by Apollo. Jeffrey Kluger has written several previous space history books, most notably a book about the Apollo 13 mission.
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Apollo 1 in Photographs, Apollo 7 in Photographs, and Apollo 8 in Photographs
by J.L. Pickering, John Bisney, with Ed Hengeveld
In the late 1990s, I worked for the photo editor at Air & Space magazine and learned what makes a good photo versus a poor one for illustrating an article. Although many photos from early space missions have been published, often the same photos were used again and again, and thousands of other photos have gone ignored. Fortunately, J.L. Pickering, John Bisney, and Ed Hengeveld, a well-known Dutch collector of spaceflight images, have been digging through archives to find the photos that have never appeared before.
The Apollo 1 mission, despite (or because of) its notoriety, has not received much attention from historians. That is changing, with at least two new books in the works about the fatal accident and its impact on the Apollo program. Pickering, Bisney, and Hengeveld have now produced collections of photographs on the Apollo 1, 7, and 8 missions, and intend to cover all the rest of the flown missions.
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Inspired Enterprise
by Glen Swanson
Glen Swanson’s deeply researched book on the ties between the original Star Trek series and NASA, the aerospace industry, and the Smithsonian Institution helps explain part of that show’s appeal. Creator Gene Roddenberry and many of the people who worked for him were seeking to make a TV show about a spaceship hundreds of years in the future feel like a logical extension of the emerging spaceflight effort of the mid-1960s (see “Is Starfleet military or scientific? Yes.” The Space Review, October 27, 2025; and “Inspiring Star Trek and NASA,” The Space Review, July 28, 2025.)
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On a Mission: The Smithsonian History of US Women Astronauts
by Valerie Neal
In recent years, there have been several books about the first American female astronauts. Valerie Neal, a former curator at the National Air and Space Museum, has produced a new book on this subject. I briefly knew Neal when I had a visiting fellowship at the Smithsonian and she was always an enthusiastic and friendly purveyor of space history. She undoubtedly brings that energy to this topic.
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Gemini and Mercury Remastered
by Andy Saunders
Over a year ago I came across a photo of astronaut Pete Conrad descending from the Apollo 12 Lunar Module that had been taken by Alan Bean. Andy Saunders shared the original, which was dark and unremarkable, and then the version he had remastered, bringing out the colors and the details. It was revelatory. Saunders is a supreme craftsman at photo restoration and enhancement, and three years ago published a collection of remastered Apollo photographs. Now he has done it again. I don’t own either of these books yet, but have been told by people who do that they are truly impressive.
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USS Yorktown (CV-10), Legends of Warfare
by David Doyle
USS Yorktown, Naval History Special Edition<br>
by Andrew Faltum
The USS Yorktown was the second aircraft carrier to bear that name. Commissioned in 1943, it had a long career after the Second World War. It also served as the recovery ship for Apollo 8. She currently is a museum ship in South Carolina. David Doyle has produced many photo-heavy books over the years, including many on early American aircraft carriers. This one has a lot of great, never-before-seen photos of this ship. Included are several photos of the Apollo 8 recovery effort.
Andrew Faltum has written a history of the Yorktown that focuses more on the battles, deployments, and evolution of the ship during its service, including the Apollo 8 recovery. It has fewer photographs than Doyle’s book, but more text.
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Born to Explore: John Casani’s Grand Tour of the Solar System
by Jay Gallentine
Over the past couple of decades, I have been lucky to work with a lot of interesting and brilliant people and had the opportunity to talk to them about their work. One of my regrets is that back in 2010, after a long meeting, John Casani asked me to join him at our hotel bar for a beer and I declined because my brain was mush. Stupid decision on my part, and I could have learned so much from him. Casani played a key role in many of the most important planetary science missions ever flown, most notably the Voyager spacecraft. He knew more about deep space missions than anybody.
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The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze that Captured Turn-of-the-Century America
by David Baron
In 2023, National Air and Space Museum curator Matthew Shindell published For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet, which delved into humanity’s long interest, even obsession with, Mars. David Baron’s new book focuses on the early twentieth century, when that obsession became even more intense as many people believed that intelligent life had been detected on Mars after Harvard astronomer Percival Lowell announced that he had detected canals on Mars. Lowell was eventually consumed by the craze that he initiated (see “Review: The Martians”, The Space Review, September 15, 2025.)
There is still time to ask Santa Claus for these books, as long as you’re not on the naughty list.
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