Little Major Tom

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The little major Tom as an animated figure at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019

Little Major Tom is a children's book series that has been published by Tessloff Verlag in Nuremberg since 2018 . The books explain astronomy and space travel with the help of adventure stories . The stories are published in parallel to the print version as a radio play and are set in space , on the earth , the moon , Mars and the wider solar system. Furthermore, there are puzzle editions in book format and an advent calendar book in which there is a continuous story with an open ending on every December day.

Participants and publication dates

The singer Peter Schilling , who had a number 1 hit with Major Tom (completely detached) in 1982 , is the inspiration behind the book series. The author of the books is Bernd Flessner , the illustrations are by Stefan Lohr . Volker Kratzenberg-Annies, who is the executive officer for the promotion of young talent at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), is responsible for providing technical advice . Barbara Heinlein takes care of the graphic design of the books, from the fifth volume in the basic layout and development supported by Uwe Herrlen. Anja Kunze is the editor and Silke Neubert and Hannah Fleßner are responsible for editing the volumes.

For the Tessloff Verlag, which has been publishing the WAS IST WAS series since 1961 , the books are a realignment from non-fiction to narrative children's books, in which topics of knowledge are narrated.

On March 1, 2018, the first four volumes were published simultaneously. The series was continued on June 13, 2018 with volumes five and six, volumes seven and eight appeared on October 1, 2018, the ninth on March 29, 2019, the tenth on July 19, 2019 and the eleven band.

Books

Volume 1: Completely Detached

ISBN 978-3-7886-4001-9 . Released on January 24, 2018.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4101-6 . Released October 5, 2018.

Little Major Tom lives on the Space Camp 1 space station , which orbits the earth. His father, the great Major Tom and Stella, the friend of the little Major Tom and the robot cat Plutinchen, live with him in the space station.

Since the big Major Tom is called off to start a repair approach on Mars, the little Major Tom, Stella and Plutinchen remain on the space station. As soon as the father has flown away, the children are given the task of changing the orbit of the space station in order to avoid space debris. This works. However, a piece of space junk damaged one of the station's awnings. With an outboard operation, you will need to replace the sail. In the case of Stella, the safety line comes loose, but Plutinchen rescues her.

Scientific explanations

  • Space stations
  • Food supply on Mars
  • Space junk
  • Energy supply of space stations

Volume 2: Return to Earth

ISBN 978-3-7886-4002-6 . Released on January 24, 2018.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4102-3 . Released October 5, 2018.

Little Major Tom and Stella get the message from the ground station that a new little spaceship, called the Space Racer , has been made available to them. While testing the Space Racer , they get a call from their former school friend Daniel. He is afraid of a solar eclipse . Little Major Tom and Stella ask the ground station to be able to continue testing the Space Racer by landing on Earth. After authorization to land on earth, they explain the solar eclipse to Daniel and take him on a test flight into the atmosphere to explain refractions in the atmosphere to him. So you can explain to him why the earth is called a blue planet.

On the return flight to their space station, the two of them are asked by ground control to loosen a jammed cover on a new space telescope . This is achieved with the help of the Space Racer .

Scientific explanations

Volume 3: The moon mission

ISBN 978-3-7886-4003-3 . Released on January 24, 2018.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4103-0 . Released October 5, 2018.

A laser reflector on the moon that is used to measure distances needs to be cleaned. Little Major Tom and Stella get the job of cleaning the house. On the way to the moon they have to avoid meteoroids . Since a small meteoroid hit the Space Racer , Plutinchen has to go to an outboard mission to seal a small hole.

They land on the moon in Mare Tranquillitatis , near the landing site of Apollo 11 . Little Major Tom almost crushes a Neil Armstrong shoe print , but is pushed aside by Stella at the last moment. Plutinchen can clean the laser reflector with a brush. The friends look at a moon crater and experience a moonquake . They fly to the Cayley Highlands and borrow an abandoned Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) from the Apollo 16 landing site . When driving to your Space Racer, the brakes and controls of the LRV fail, but luckily you come to a stop five meters before a collision with the Space Racer .

Scientific explanations

Volume 4: Comet Risk

ISBN 978-3-7886-4004-0 . Released on January 24, 2018.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4104-7 . Released October 5, 2018.

There's a problem in the Space Camp 1 greenhouse with lettuce wilting. The corrosion of measuring sensors will result in an incorrect moisture value and the automatic watering will not release enough water. The problem is recognized and the probes are exchanged by Stella. Little Major Tom and Stella are given the task of taking a closer look at a comet that could come close to Earth. Speed, trajectory and approximate mass are calculated. Plutinchen lands on the comet. The comet breaks into two parts, the larger of the two parts is on course to earth. With the help of the Space Racer , it is possible to easily divert the comet from its orbit so that it no longer poses a threat to Earth.

Scientific explanations

Volume 5: Dangerous Journey to Mars

ISBN 978-3-7886-4005-7 . Published on June 13, 2018.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4105-4 . Released March 29, 2019.

The children are given the task of flying to Mars in the Space Racer . This is to try out a new wormhole technology. A wormhole is created through which the Space Racer can fly. When exiting near Mars, they come out too close to the Martian moon Phobos , but can avert a clash at the last minute. When they land on Mars, they worry because nobody from the Mars station, where little Major Tom's father is, greets them. They are relieved when it turns out that this is because part of the crew is on an field assignment and the rest of them have to deal with a power outage.

On Mars, children can explore the area around the station in a Mars car. When they want to look at a chunk of ice, the ground collapses and they end up in a cave. With the help of plutini and a rope, they can free themselves from the cave and take a piece of the ice there with them. The find helps the Mars station to develop a new water source.

Scientific explanations

Volume 6: Adventures on Mars

ISBN 978-3-7886-4006-4 . Published on June 13, 2018.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4106-1 . Released March 29, 2019.

On Mars, the children go on an excursion to the yoga rock, which the Mars rover Sojourner of the Mars Pathfinder mission had investigated in 1997. There is a sandstorm there. The violent sandstorm is survived. Then the children visit the shield volcano Olympus Mons , the highest mountain in the solar system. Since the ground slips when the space racer lands , the spaceship threatens to fall into a crater. The children can just stop the crash by fixing the Space Racer with stones. But even the stones don't hold up the spaceship for long. With an emergency start they finally free themselves from the dangerous situation.

On the return flight they are given the task of looking in the Kasei Valles , the largest river valley on Mars. There are machines there that can be used to take soil samples. An automatic drill is stuck. You notice that the battery on this machine is empty. With the help of a lever and a plug you manage to operate the drill manually and thus complete the drilling.

Scientific explanations

  • Robot vehicles on Mars ( Sojourner , Spirit , Opportunity , Curiosity )
  • Sand and dust storms on Mars
  • Increased radiation on Mars due to the lack of a magnetic field

Volume 7: Out of Control!

ISBN 978-3-7886-4007-1 . Released October 1, 2018.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4107-8 . Released March 29, 2019.

Little Major Tom, Stella and Plutinchen fly back to Earth from Mars with the help of a wormhole that is created, where the Space Racer is to be serviced . Mars sand has damaged the controls of the spaceship, making landing on Earth difficult. The children can spend a week on the ground station, where Stella's parents work. After a medical examination of the children, a centrifuge is used to generate artificial gravity to see how resilient the robotic cat Plutinchen is. The maximum gravity of 10 damages Plutinchen's software, so that it can only speak in surrealistic rhymes. With a reset there is a risk that Plutinchen loses its personality. Little Major Tom risks a reset. Fortunately, Plutinchen's personality did not retain any damage after the restart. During an excursion in a helicopter, the little major Tom, Stella and Plutinchen explore how rain occurs.

Scientific explanations

Volume 8: Lost in the Rainforest

ISBN 978-3-7886-4008-8 . Released October 1, 2018.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4108-5 . Released September 27, 2019.

The Space Racer has been serviced and repaired. Little Major Tom, Stella and Plutinchen have to do test flights with him before they can return to their space station. Tom meets his mother again, who works for the space agency but was on a business trip. First the children visit their friend Daniel. He has to write a term paper about the rainforest . As a test flight, the children take Daniel to Brazil to show him the rainforest. There they land in a clearing, marvel at the flora and fauna and are threatened by a large anaconda . Daniel gets lost and they have to look for him. While searching, you plunge down a slope and find Daniel in a hole in the ground from which he cannot free himself. Stella cuts through a root that she uses to pull Daniel out of the hole. They shimmy back to the Space Racer on lianas .

Scientific explanations

  • Jaguars
  • Anacondas
  • Lianas
  • Rainforest deforestation

Volume 9: Under the spell of Jupiter

ISBN 978-3-7886-4009-5 . Published on March 29, 2019.
As a radio play ISBN 978-3-7886-4221-1 . Released April 10, 2020.

The toilet is broken on the Space Camp 1 space station, but Plutinchen can repair it. The children receive an order from Earth to test a new wormhole on the planet Jupiter . Because little Major Tom and Stella are thrilled by the sight of Jupiter, they miss the time to return and have to wait ten hours before the wormhole can be rebuilt. You use the time and explore the moons Callisto and Europe . After landing on Europe, they try to get a water sample from the European Ocean with the help of Plutinchen, but a geyser forces them to make an emergency start.

Scientific explanations

  • Toilets on space stations
  • Jupiter and its moons
  • Jupiter's moon Io
Stand with volume 10 at a reading by Bernd Flessner at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019

Volume 10: In the wake of the black hole

ISBN 978-3-7886-4010-1 . Released June 19, 2019.

On the return flight from Jupiter, the wormhole does not bring the Space Racer back to Space Camp 1, but 3500 light-years away from the solar system near a black hole . Stella wants to take a closer look at the black hole, but because of a bug in the control software, they come too close to the black hole. Plutinchen can fix the software error and they manage to free themselves from the attraction of the black hole just in time. The wormhole reappears and brings you back to Space Camp 1.

Scientific explanations

Volume 11: Who will save Ming and Hu?

ISBN 978-3-7886-4011-8 . Released March 30, 2020.

The International Space Station (ISS) has been hit by space debris. Tom and Stella get the job of picking up two astronauts from the ISS. To their surprise, the astronauts are children too. They are children of Chinese crew members, so they are Taikonauts . The robot cat Plutinchen befriends the robot animal of the Taikonauts, a giant panda by the name of Nèng Nèng. The space debris has caused leaks in the ISS that cannot be repaired by any remaining team. The children help because their little robotic animals can better access the leaks. The only way to get to a leak is through the laboratory module. An acid container has burst in the laboratory module. The acid drove Stella and Plutinchen to plug the leak, but they manage to fix the problem.

Scientific explanations

Radio plays

The individual volumes will also appear as radio plays, the first four stories on October 5, 2018, stories five and six on March 29, 2019, and stories seven and eight on October 29, 2019 and nine on April 10, 2020. The CDs will be also published by Tessloff Verlag, together with Universal Music .

The narrator for the radio plays is Jürgen Heimüller , who also lends his voice to the on-board computer. Little Major Tom is spoken by Helwig Arenz , Stella by Christin Wehner, the robot cat Plutinchen by Petra Nacke , who also directs, is the production manager of the radio plays and, together with Gerhard Grell, is responsible for the sound design. The great Major Tom is spoken by Peter Schilling himself.

The radio plays are recorded in the "highstreet tonstudio" in Nuremberg. All radio play CDs receive Peter Schilling's song Major Tom (completely detached) as a bonus track .

Web links

Commons : The Little Major Tom  - Collection of Pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ With little Major Tom into the universe of knowledge. New series of children's books based on an idea by Peter Schilling . Press release from Tessloff Verlag dated March 6, 2018
  2. ↑ Tessloff becomes a full-service provider. Little Major Tom is coming . Article from October 12, 2017 in the Börsenblatt
  3. ↑ a b Little Major Tom in Der HörspielBär