Coverage is current through 1995. Collier's provides the most extensive bibliographies, with some titles published in 1995. Academic American also breaks up its treatment into a series of articles, including Space Exploration, Space Medicine, and Space Shuttle. Coverage in most of the articles extends well into 1996. There is a useful space-shuttle chronology of more than two pages, ending with the late 1996 flight of the shuttle Columbia .
General coverage is expanded by numerous other articles throughout the set.
There is a separate four-page entry for Soyuz, for example, with a chronology of Soyuz flights ending in August 1996. This approach means that Academic American provides greater detail on some subjects, such as Soyuz, than the other sets, which fold most smaller topics into a few comprehensive articles. The index is key to tracking down various related entries. Compton's article, Space Travel, is nearly 30 pages long. It is just about even with World Book in numbers of charts, schematics, and diagrams.