A promotional comic from 1960 called Space Explorer. It was part of the comic series Boys’ and Girls’ March of Comics, #202. These promotional comics were distributer to retailers who would brand them with their name and give them away to customers to attract them to shop at that store (like stores that sell Jumping-Jacks shoes.) Space Explorer is the story of a brave astronaut who survives trials and tribulations to make it to Phobos (of Mars) to discover via telescope new information about Martian canals. Spoiler alert: Mars has primitive plants but no intelligent life made the canals. Space Explorer. (Promotional comic.)  Boys’ and Girls’ March of Comics, #202. Poughkeepsie, NY: Western Printing and Lithographing Co. (18 p.) 1960.

The Spaceman at Home and at School was a pamphlet for elementary school teacher. It gave them ideas about how to teach about space flight in the classroom with vivid examples. It was not about the history of spaceflight but rather how to build on the "Space Race" excitement already in the classrooms of the time. Probably not too many copies of this one still around.  It is a charming spaceflight craft and costume handbook. I found a copy that come from a retired teacher's classroom. Along with it she had reproduced drawings from the book and a play about spaceflight. She also had mimeographs to hand out of the play and to send home with parents who might have to create a costume.  Miller, Ray. The Spaceman at Home and at School. Riverside, CA: Bruce Miller Publication. (24 p.) 1958.  My 2016 blog post about this book and record https://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2016/09/space-horizons-unlimited-1957.html One of the copied plans for parents.

Some nice space pictures (to color) for you today.  Coloring books may be one of the ultimate forms of ephemera. There were meant to be used, admired? and then thrown away. Yet many children owned them and there were at least 40 issued between 1950 and 1970 on space themes. If pictures are a universal communication then these children got a lot of input about what their future in space would look like. This particular one is full of futuristic dreams of what space flight might be from the viewpoint of the beginning of our men into space programs. Rockets and Space Coloring Book. New York: Treasure Books. (51 p.) 1960.  This first batch seems to be copied from older 50's space images This image on the right above seems a little odd. It can't be on the Moon since there is a helicopter.  What is the palm tree doing in the loading of the lunar ship? Does it leave from the tropics? Does it launch "single stage direct?" This image above also needs more explanation. Is this a Russian launch system? I don't remember it. "Ready for take-off" to aim at targets on Earth? That spaceship has a really big window

Die Mondexpedition is the original  German book that was translated into English in 1969 as The Log of a Moon Expedition. It's full title at the time was Die Mondexpedition: 14 Mal 24 Stunden auf dem Mond roughly translated as The Lunar Expedition: 14 times on the moon for 24 hours. Which I simplify as "The Lunar Expedition: 14 days on the Moon." The author and illustration was Ludek Pesek, a well known space artist. See his Wikipedia article here. He illustrated space and planetary themes in books and National Geographic illustrations since 1963. This was his first science fiction novel which he chose to illustrate with lush paintings of an expedition to the Moon. I blogged about the English language copy of this book in 2009. If you have not seen these before I am happy to show you some wonderful art you might have missed. Pesek, Ludek. Illustrated by Pesek, Ludek. Die Mondexpedition: 14 Mal 24 Stunden auf dem Mond . Recklinghausen: Paulus Verlag. (126 p.)