The year is 1978 and I’m at school. My school was a long building with 12 classrooms along a central media center/library. Each classroom was open to the media center delineated by the occasional bookshelf and the absence of desks. I’m trolling through the science and technology fiction section of the stacks having acquired a taste of the genre from seeing Star Wars (twice) the year before and endless reruns of Star Trek and Space 1999. Glen Larson’s masterpiece Battlestar Galactica and it’s Buck Rogers echo were still in the future. I came across this brand new book that no one had yet checked out called Spacecraft 2000 to 2001 by Stewart Cowley with the subtitle Terran Trade Authority Handbook. It was written as a future historical guide to spacecraft of the 21st century. Every page features a different space craft with a beautiful painting. I still remember the artwork. Along with the painting there was a chart of specifications and in some cases a line drawing. I remember getting out graph paper to recreate the technical drawings.
I never found out what the Terran Trade Authority was. I assumed it was like D&D. The structure of the book was as a handbook. It included an historic timely starting in the 1980s and describing a future with martian settlers and discoveries of alien ruins. Copies of this book can be found on eBay and there was even a new printing a few years ago.
