2009 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice The launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 ushered in an exciting era of scientific and technological advancement. As television news anchors, radio hosts, and journalists reported the happenings of the American and the Soviet space programs to millions of captivated citizens, words that belonged to the worlds of science, aviation, and science fiction suddenly became part of the colloquial language. What’s more, NASA used a litany of acronyms in much of its official correspondence in an effort to transmit as much information in as little time as possible. To translate this peculiar vocabulary, Paul Dickson has compiled the curious lingo and mystifying acronyms of NASA in an accessible dictionary of the names, words, and phrases of the Space Age. Aviators, fighter pilots, and test pilots coined the phrases “spam in a can” (how astronauts felt prelaunch as they sat in a tiny capsule atop a rocket booster); “tickety-boo” (things are fine), and “the Eagle has landed” (Neil Armstrong’s famous quote when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon). This dictionary captures a broader foundation for language of the Space Age based on the historic principles employed by the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster’s New Third International Dictionary. Word histories for major terms are detailed in a conversational tone, and technical terms are deciphered for the interested student and lay reader. This is a must-own reference for space history buffs.

There is a rich history of achievements by Chartered Surveyors in Singapore going back as far as the 1880s. Their stories have largely gone untold. This book tells the stories of individual Chartered Surveyors in Singapore over the first hundred years since the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors was founded (1868 to 1968) and explains the role they played in the development of Singapore. The book also includes the stories of the pioneer Singaporean Chartered Surveyors from the 1940s onwards, many of whom studied overseas but returned to Singapore where they would play important roles in the real estate industry over future decades.Related Link(s)