I'm wondering if anyone has thought about putting together a book with the research and images created in this forum?

I think the space literature needs a book of the rarer, non officially released images that NASA don't process, as well as highlighting the great work members of this forum do.

Any thoughts?

Steve

Expensive to produce, very little chance of any revenue, a significant amount of work to create, and yes, it's been mentioned and thought of before, but ultimately, it doesn't make any economic sense.

Doug

and don't forget the nightmare of copyright entanglements associated with the source material we use freely and widely here.

As a new member here a book like that would be of interest to me but I can see where it would be such a challenge

Assembled compilations of highlights from certain threads would be cool, but even doing that is hugely time-consuming. I know from experience

Bringing out such a book could be done via online services but would be a huge challenge for the different reasons mentioned above ( time, copyright entanglements, enough takers ? ... )

I am retireing from teaching in June and will have a lot of time then, no promise but I would consider a project with technical assistance.

Yes I have had some experience with illustrating and writing books and would like to get involved.

Most of the US raw data is copyright free provided the originating agency is credited.

We would need a synopsis, target audience and some great, never before seen hard hitting images.

A generous portion of the book should also be devoted to Russian unmanned missions, as well as some of Europe, Japan and China's efforts. This would make the book stand out.

We would also need a few chapter writers who can expand on the topic of amateur space processing.

But material posted here is classified as a unique creation and is thus not copyright free.

Naturally this is the case but I thought the original copyright problem may have been that people thought the source data was copyrighted.

Surely if this is a book about Unmanned Spaceflight members we could either ensure we only include work from those members agreeing to participate inn the book project or ask permission to use other desired images for the book. I think this is achieveable.

Anybody would be free to compile material from UMSF or anywhere else as long as they got permission from the original posters of modified data - and credited the mission science teams involved and UMSF itself, of course. To my mind the hardest part would be the question of who benefits from the publication. If it supported UMSF I expect many people would be all for it. If only the author of the compilation benefited, maybe few posters would give permission.

Phil

I really like the idea of the work posted at UMSF appearing in a printed compendium of some sort. I agree with Doug that the economic viability of such a project at this point would be extremely limited, and that the copyright issues may be substantial. Nonetheless the contributions of UMSF members are already a very significant body of work, with appearances in technical documents, broadly visible public websites, books, and the cover of Aviation Week. It might be very interesting in the near future to publish a volume documenting the participation of the amateur community (and general public) in planetary exploration via image processing and rudimentary analysis, especially in a very visually accessible and artistic sense. This forum in particular has fostered very productive communication between members of the planetary science community and amateurs, and has allowed some otherwise unlikely characters (myself included) to experience a genuine sense of somehow adding to the growing body of human knowledge of these many worlds. It might make for a pretty compelling story! Taken in conjunction with details of the technological advances since 1995 in software and computing power that have brought formerly impossible image manipulations within reach of anyone with a laptop, I think we might eventually have something marketable...and something that will draw people into greater interest and participation. Cool idea, maybe give it some time.