This is an early publication under ITV's Magpie banner, published in 1969 this is an ABC of Space written by Peter Fairley with a foreword by Magpie presenter Pete Brady.
This being the year that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two astronauts to walk on the surface of the moon, I recall being an 8 year old boy obsessed with the images of space travel and the Apollo rockets. Brady writes that in celebration of this adventure, Magpie had launched an ABC of Space on the programme, the book therefore perhaps aiming to capture some of this content though apart from Brady's foreword there is little by way of specific reference back to Magpie.
Peter Fairley's 'annual-sized' book could have been one of Magpie's first forays into the world of publishing, which Blue Peter had been doing for some years with both annuals and other books with specific topics, and in fairness it has aged well in terms of quality and content. There is a lot of information here which you'd be hard pressed to find online today without a lot of Google searching.
My acid test with anything claiming to an 'ABC of...' is always "I wonder what they have included for the letters like Q, V, W, X, Y, and Z. So let's have a look shall we...
Q - interestingly Fairley points out that Q is for Q! He goes on to explain that Q is a letter used by rocket engineers to indicate pressure, useful to monitor when a rocket accelerates upwards through the atmosphere. When a rocket is on full power, says Fairley, the pressure builds up to its maximum which is known as Maximum Q. So yes we'll let him have that one though I would also have squeezed in Q is for Queen, a rock group who featured space themes in a few of their songs including the great Don't Stop Me Now (even though he'd have to have used a time machine to jump forward a decade or so to enjoy the amazing Freddie Mercury in full throttle).
V - this one was initially disappointing when I first read it, V is for Velcro. Especially when you've previously been treated to such Boy's Own gems as J is for Jet Shoes (now you're talking), G is for Ground Control (can you hear me Major Tom?) and F is for Firing Pad (whoa!). To then come across V is for Velcro smacks a little bit of scraping the barrel, what next? M is for mittens on the ends of a long rubber band threaded through the arms of one's space suit? But Fairley enlightens us that the Velcro was actually placed in squares on the floor of the Moonship to aid the weightless astronauts walking around and thereby keeping their feet on the ground, as it were. Very clever, I didn't know that.
W is for workshop. Ok, this does automatically conjure up images of elderly gentlemen polishing up their chisels down the man-shed at the end of the garden in Oldbury, but Fairley does remind us that the whole raison d'etre of going into space in the first place was to collect and study stuff so I guess he does make a good case for having a workshop and even calls it an orbital workshop (different to an orbital sander) at one point which at least does have more of a spaceship ring to it. The orbital workshop on an Apollo spaceship also had an exercise bike apparently and the photo of the exercise bike in the book looks like something you would only see nowadays at a car boot sale... "I'll have you know mate this is what Neil Armstrong used to tone up for his moon walk! Ok I'll take a tenner for it and I'll throw in the Velcro soled jet shoes I noticed you inspecting with a quizzical expression when you stopped by earlier".
X is for X-Ray. I'm not going to quibble over this. If the alternative was xylophone, I am sure X-Rays have played a role in space exploration somewhere along the line so I'm not even going to bother reading it. Perhaps used for when a weightless spaceman sprains his ankle on the exercise bike?
Y is for Yaw. No not a species of Arctic long-haired buffalo, a yaw according to Fairley is one of three movements which a spaceship can make without actually changing its orbit, the other two being pitch and roll. Yawing means moving the spaceship's nose from side to side. So if you are ever a space tourist on a Richard Branson flight around the earth when both the pilot and co-pilot both drop down dead, putting you under pressure to volunteer to take over at the controls and you hear ground control shouting "you're gonna have to yaw it man".... at that point you will be glad you read my review of Magpie's ABC of Space.
And finally...
Z is for Zero-G says Fairley, which basically means weightlessness and he describes this as being when "a spaceman is said to be weightless when the speed at which he is travelling balances out the pull of Earth's gravity". Apart from getting a bit Bleep and Booster on us with the use of the word spaceman as opposed to astronaut, this all seems in the words of Mr Spock... logical and I like how he suggests that when we reach the highest point on a playground swing and hang there for a split second before descending, we are momentarily at Zero-G (i.e. weightless). I must remember that for the next time this over-weight 58 year old squeezes himself into a playground swing and attempts to experience Zero-G momentarily before the local mums and dads report him to the park keeper.
What a good read. Well worth a fiver of anyone's money on E-Bay. Let them outbid each other for fake Blue Peter badges and forged signed Michael Sundin photos! I have the Magpie ABC Book of Space, will travel.
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