Author: @gswrites

Apollo 11 documentary

[Originally posted 25 February 2019]

Nothing to do with yours truly (I’ve only just become aware of it!) but felt I had to post it here – a spectacular new documentary coming soon (very soon if you’re in the States) to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission…


After the treat of First Man late last year (for which, I really must get around to doing a review!), we now get to see the real thing in a stunningly detailed restoration from director Todd Douglas Miller (previously known for the connoisseur’s T-Rex doco Dinosaur 13), including previously unseen 70mm footage. Critics are saying it’s amazing, and the trailer alone certainly gave me goosebumps. It’s out on March 1st in the US, but so far no confirmation of a release date on this side of the pond – here’s hoping, though, because this looks like a movie worth watching on the biggest screen you can find…

Coming soon…

Looks lovely, doesn’t it?

[Originally posted 26 February 2019]

Bouncing up and down a bit today, because the publishers have just sent through the blad for my latest book. Secrets in the Skies tells the story of Galileo Galilei, his discoveries and battle against the Inquisition, and is slated for publication by the brilliant folks at Wren & Rook this November.

Giving the storybook treatment to such an important slice of scientific history was a really enjoyable challenge, but I’m thrilled at how it’s come together – and especially chuffed at the awesome illustrations from the hugely talented James Weston Lewis. Hopefully I’ll be able to offer a glimpse of the interior closer to publication, but for the moment I’m delighted to share this preview of the cover!

Spaceflight has landed!

The new edition of Spaceflight is now available from all good physical and online bookshops!. We originally produced this gorgeous book for the Sputnik anniversary in 2007, and I spent much of last summer working with the good folks at Dorling Kindersley on updates and revisions in time for the forthcoming 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11. My pal and fellow spaceflight nerd Anthony Brown helped with assiduous fact checking, and this time we also had the experts of the august Smithsonian Institution on board to review and give their seal of approval. The 2nd Edition comes bang up to date with coverage of the completion of the ISS, a welter of new space probe data and much more on commercial spaceflight, as well as fixing a few minor bugs from first time around!

Well, that was a pain…

Apologies to anyone who’s been trying to visit the site in the past month or so – I got hacked thanks to a vulnerability in the CSS plugin I used to put the site together, and after jumping through many different hoops in an effort to recover things, have reluctantly had to rebuild from scratch. At least I was able to save the blog posts from the front page so I’ll be reposting those shortly, and continuing from there. An object lesson in doing regular backups, kids…