TO MARK this year鈥檚 science, engineering and technology week, the British Library has put on an exhibition of books that have inspired the space age.
Piers Bizony, a popular science writer, organised 鈥淔rom Literature to Launch Day鈥�, and it contains some of the seminal books that contributed to the development of space travel. Beginning with Copernicus鈥� De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, in which he described a heliocentric Universe, the first display case leads up to Newton鈥檚 Principia mathematica, which presents his third law of equal and opposite reactions. This physical law existed without any practical application for two centuries until Konstantin Tsiolkovsky realised its relevance to the development of rockets in the late 19th century.
The exhibition also features an interesting display case of early British ideas about space that were, unfortunately, never pursued. The result of this failure of both governmental imagination and financial backing was that Britain failed to participate in the space race. Arthur C. Clarke鈥檚 work appears here, as well as his manuscript for How the World was Won, presented in its original form: a pair of floppy discs.
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The culmination of 鈥淔rom Literature to Launch Day鈥� is the race to the Moon between the Soviet Union and the US and his story of the Apollo programme. Featuring heavily in this section are copies of Colliers鈥� magazine from the 1950s with its many articles on the future of humans in space. Beautiful artwork and convincing prose turned the tide of American opinion so much that, when President Jack Kennedy said that reaching the 鈥渉igh frontier鈥� was an achievable goal, and Americans would go to the Moon within ten years, they believed him.
Interspersed with the more technical literature are examples of science fiction, such as Jules Verne鈥檚 De la terre 脿 la lune. They serve to demonstrate the role that fiction can play: in changing our view of what is possible, they change the future 鈥� as well as highlight how what was once science fiction has become science fact.
Models of space vehicles, meticulously constructed, illustrate our actual achievements in space. A fascinating show 鈥� and it will be open at London鈥檚 British Museum until 1 May.