Pourquoi la Lune ?

Published in autumn 1968, months before Apollo 11, this volume from the Encyclopédie Planète series offers an encyclopedic survey of the space race for a general audience. Jean-Émile Charon, a theoretical physicist specializing in relativity, divides his subject into five parts: lunar astronomy, the physics of spaceflight, the history of astronautics (1957–1968), the Apollo program, and projections toward interplanetary and interstellar travel. Richly illustrated with photographs, the book is distinguished by an ambitious fifth section on cosmic distances and the implications of Special Relativity for journeys to the stars.