World War 2 Bomber Found on the Moon Found on Google Books!

Google Books has added more magazines to its "serial holdings" since the last time I checked.

    American Motorcyclist, Feb 1955 - July 2005
    American Woodworker, Jan 1989 - Dec 1999
    Billboard, Jan 1942 - Dec 2008
    Boys’ Life, Jan 1990 - Dec 2005
    Building systems, Jan 2000 - July 2003
    Competition Science Vision (India), March 1998 - Dec 2008
    Dwell, Oct 2000 - Dec 2008
    iPod Handbook (Mac Life Winter 2008)
    Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, 1947-2007
    Liberty Magazine, 1971 - 1976
    PHOTOVIDEOi, April 2005 - Nov 2008
    Pratiyogita Darpan (India), July 2006 - Dec 2008
    Scouting, Jan 1993 - Dec 2008
    Torque, Jan 2006 - Nov 2008
    Weekly World News (Tabloid), 1981 - 2005
    Yoga Journal, July 1975 - Dec 2008

Weekly World News will be the most fun, if you like that sort of thing.

I'm looking forward to exploring the music business in Billboard.

Thanks to Eric Rumsey. If you spot a new magazine in the collection, please let me or Eric know.

About That Bomber... Exposing the Hoax!

From Odds & Ends

Consolidated B-24N found in lunar crater, according to WWN for 5 April 1988.

In fact, this photo is a hoax.

As you can see, the shadows on the plane don't quite line up with the shadows in the crater.

It is clear that aliens have painted a picture of a B-24 on the floor of the crater!

Rocket 'n' Roll: Willy Ley's Recording Career

Willy Ley (1906-1969) was a great science writer of the 20th century. He is best known for his books on rocketry and on biology. He sometimes served as science adviser for radio and TV shows and other projects.

Until now, I had not known that Willy had a recording career.

From a review in Billboard for 15 December 1958:

Rockets, Missiles and Space Travel
Written and directed by Willy Ley--Vox PL 11/120

The cover alone should sell this timely package to students and science buffs, with its striking color shot of a Jupiter rocket blasting off its launching pad. Inside, rocket veteran Willy Ley and narrator Arthur Hannes take listeners on a sort of guided tour of Cape Canaveral, complete with the complex noises of blockhouse "countdowns," the roar of rockets and on-location interviews by Ley of such notables as Dr. Wernher von Braun and Major General Bernard Schriever.

Ley and von Braun also did The Conquest of Space from Vox, "Science Series Vol. 1," though it's hard to make out the catalogue number from the photo.

The library of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, a repository of Ley's stuff, lists:

The Conquest of space : a conversation between Dr. Wernher von Braun and Willy
Ley. (New York: Vox Productions [produced by Ward Botsford], 1959) two 12in.
33RPM discs, 4 sides, in illus. slipcase (=Science series, v.1)
Part I -- The Society of Space Travel
Part II -- Peenemünde
Part III -- White Sands
Part IV -- The future

Four sides. Wow. I'd like to hear these, wouldn't you?

(By the way, "The Conquest of Space" was a title applied to a lot of things, some interrelated, some not. It was a famous coffee-table book, a George Pal movie, this record, a View-Master reel, another spoken-word record by William Laurence, et cetera, et cetera.)