Trace the architectural history of space travel with this new guide to lunar design
Image: Scale model of a module from the Swesda lunar station. © Barmin Design Bureau Of General Engineering
13 September 2019
Text:
Alexander Schneider
Design-loving space cadets can now get their hands on the definitive guide to lunar architecture in a new book chronicling every single artefact and structure ever sent (or planned to be sent) to the moon.
The release of Architecture Guide: Moon by Paul Meuser, published by DOM with help from Moscow Polytech, coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, when Neil Armstrong took his famous journey.
Humankind’s first mark on the moon was actually made 10 years earlier, when the Soviet vessel Luna 2 became the first spacecraft to impact its surface in 1959.
Lunar station with classic and classicist shape vocabulary, designed by Anton Rakov of the Samara Polytech, 2018. © Samara Polytech
From the start of the Space Race, Meuser chronicles the successes and failures of every lunar mission since, from the Soyuz capsule and Salyut space stations designed by Soviet space pioneer Galina Balashova, to today’s ongoing expeditions and private space travel ventures like SpaceX.
Aside from over 500 illustrations, the book also includes reflections by Balashova, Alexander Glushko (son of Valentin Glushko, the Soviet space programme’s chief engineer), and other authors and experts.
The book is available from DOM’s website.
