Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 896
Book Description
Exploring the Unknown, Volume VII, NASA SP-2008-4407, 2008, *
Author: Exploring the Unknown: Using space
Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Astronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 648
Book Description
Remembering the Space Age
Author: Steven J. DickPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Astronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 486
Book Description
From the Publisher: Proceedings of October 2007 conference, sponsored by the NASA History Division and the National Air and Space Museum, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Sputnik 1 launch in October 1957 and the dawn of the space age.
Pathways to Exploration
Author: National Research CouncilPublisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309305101
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 279
Book Description
The United States has publicly funded its human spaceflight program on a continuous basis for more than a half-century, through three wars and a half-dozen recessions, from the early Mercury and Gemini suborbital and Earth orbital missions, to the lunar landings, and thence to the first reusable winged crewed spaceplane that the United States operated for three decades. Today the United States is the major partner in a massive orbital facility - the International Space Station - that is becoming the focal point for the first tentative steps in commercial cargo and crewed orbital space flights. And yet, the long-term future of human spaceflight beyond this project is unclear. Pronouncements by multiple presidents of bold new ventures by Americans to the Moon, to Mars, and to an asteroid in its native orbit, have not been matched by the same commitment that accompanied President Kennedy\'s now fabled 1961 speech-namely, the substantial increase in NASA funding needed to make it happen. Are we still committed to advancing human spaceflight? What should a long-term goal be, and what does the United States need to do to achieve it? Pathways to Exploration explores the case for advancing this endeavor, drawing on the history of rationales for human spaceflight, examining the attitudes of stakeholders and the public, and carefully assessing the technical and fiscal realities. This report recommends maintaining the long-term focus on Mars as the horizon goal for human space exploration. With this goal in mind, the report considers funding levels necessary to maintain a robust tempo of execution, current research and exploration projects and the time/resources needed to continue them, and international cooperation that could contribute to the achievement of spaceflight to Mars. According to Pathways to Exploration, a successful U.S. program would require sustained national commitment and a budget that increases by more than the rate of inflation. In reviving a U.S. human exploration program capable of answering the enduring questions about humanity's destiny beyond our tiny blue planet, the nation will need to grapple with the attitudinal and fiscal realities of the nation today while staying true to a small but crucial set of fundamental principles for the conduct of exploration of the endless frontier. The recommendations of Pathways to Exploration provide a clear map toward a human spaceflight program that inspires students and citizens by furthering human exploration and discovery, while taking into account the long-term commitment necessary to achieve this goal.
Flights of Discovery
Author: Lane E. WallacePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 214
Book Description
When Biospheres Collide
Author: Michael MeltzerPublisher: U. S. National Aeronautics & Space Administration
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 556
Book Description
NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT FOR THIS PRINT PRODUCT- OVERSTOCK SALE-- Significantly reduced list price This new book from the NASA History Series tackles an interesting duo of biological problems that will be familiar to anybody who has seen photos of Apollo astronauts quarantined after their return to Earth.Namely, how do we avoid contaminating celestial bodies with Earthly germs when we send spacecraft to study these bodies, and how do we avoid spreading foreign biological matter from space when our robotic and human spacefarers return to Earth?Biological matter from an external system could potentially cause an unchecked epidemic either on Earth or in space so strict precautions are necessary. Each time a space vehicle visits another world it runs the risk of forever changing that extraterrestrial environment. We are surrounded on Earth by a melange of different microorganisms, and if some of these hitchhike onboard a space mission, they could contaminate and start colonies on a different planet. Such an occurrence would irrevocably alter the nature of that world, compromise all future scientific exploration of the body, and possibly damage any extant life on it.By inadvertently carrying exotic organisms back to Earth on our spacecraft, we also risk the release of biohazardous materials into our own ecosystem. Such concerns were recognized by scientists even before the 1957 launch of Sputnik. This book presents the history of planetary protection by tracing the responses to the above concerns on NASA s missions to the Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and many smaller bodies of our solar system. The book relates the extensive efforts put forth by NASA to plan operations and prepare space vehicles that return exemplary science without contaminating the biospheres of other worlds or our own. To protect irreplaceable environments, NASA has committed to conducting space exploration in a manner that is protective of the bodies visited, as well as of our own planet."
"Read You Loud and Clear!"
Author: Sunny TsiaoPublisher: History Office
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 532
Book Description
These accounts tell how international goodwill and foreign cooperation were crucial to the operation of the network and why the space agency chose to build the STDN the way it did. More than anything else, the story of NASA's STDN is about the "unsung heroes of the space program."
Critical issues in the history of spaceflight
Author: Steven J. DickPublisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN: 9780160877537
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 680
Book Description
Wilbur & Orville Wright
Author: Arthur George RenstromPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 140
Book Description
During the year 2003, hundreds of events will mark the one-hundredth anniversary of the Wright brothers' historic first flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The centennial year will witness exhibitions, lectures, television documentaries, films, air shows, flight recreations of Wright aircraft, the issuing of postage stamps and medals, the publication of dozens of new books and articles, and numerous other commemorative activities. One of these events, although not likely to make the evening news, is among the most important of all in terms of a lasting contribution to the observance of this ultimate aviation milestone: the reprinting of Arthur G. Renstrom's Wilbur & Orville Wright: A Chronology Commemorating the Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Orville Wright, August 19, 1871. Since its appearance in 1975, Wilbur & Orville Wright: A Chronology has become indispensable to students and authors concerned with the life and work of the famous brothers. No doubt every book on the subject published in the last quarter century, including three of my own, was written with this treasure close at hand. This volume is far more than a simple compilation of dates and facts. Renstrom was a master reference librarian and bibliographer with a passion for aviation and the Wright brothers. He brought his considerable research skills to bear on the topic, and the result is a richly detailed, ever-informative, often entertaining walk through the lives and achievements of these two extraordinary individuals. Renstrom was not content to offer a date with a one-line tidbit. His entries are brimming with information. This is a highly readable reference work that, believe or not, can be enjoyably read from cover to cover. The project was clearly a labor of love by a talented professional. During most of the last twenty years, I have been privileged to be the curator of the 1903 Wright Flyer at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. The position brings a steady stream of inquiries about the Wright airplane and the endlessly fascinating brothers who created it. I do not know how I would have done this job without Renstrom's superb volume on my bookshelf. It is the first place I go to check anything on the Wright brothers, and I typically find what I am looking for in its pages. Arthur Renstrom also published two other classic reference works on the Wright brothers: Wilbur & Orville Wright: A Bibliography Commemorating the Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Wilbur Wright, April 16, 1867, in 1968 (an updated revision was published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2002) and Wilbur & Orville Wright, Pictorial Materials: A Documentary Guide in 1982, completing a series of research tools for which there are few peers on any subject. He was also part of the team that produced the landmark two-volume compilation of the Wrights' letters, notebooks, and diaries in 1953, The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, edited by Marvin W. McFarland. Renstrom's contribution to the documentation and preservation of the Wright story is a lasting legacy that will serve researchers, students, and general enthusiasts for generations to come. In this busy, high-profile anniversary year, the reprinting of a nearly thirty-year-old reference book may seem a mundane and quiet contribution to the celebration surrounding the Wright brothers' world-changing achievement, but it is perhaps one of the most important. The U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission and NASA are to be commended for their foresight.
William H. Pickering
Author: Douglas J. MudgwayPublisher: History Office
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
Biography of William H. Pickering, 1910-2004 On the first day of February 1958, three men held aloft a model of Explorer 1, America's first Earth satellite, for the press photographers. That image of William Pickering, Wernher von Braun, and James Van Allen became an icon for America's response to the Sputnik challenge. Von Braun and Van Allen were well known, but who was Pickering? From humble beginnings in a remote country town in New Zealand, Pickering came to California in 1928 and quickly established himself as an outstanding student at the then-new California Institute of Technology (Caltech). At Caltech, Pickering worked under the famous physicist Robert Millikan on cosmic-ray experiments, at that time a relatively new field of physics. In 1944, when Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was developing rocket propulsion systems for the U.S. Army, Pickering joined the work-force as a technical manager. He quickly established himself as an outstanding leader, and 10 years later, Caltech named him Director of JPL. And then, suddenly, the world changed. In October 1957, the Sputnik satellite startled the world with its spectacular demonstration of Soviet supremacy in space. Pickering led an intense JPL effort that joined with the von Braun and Van Allen teams to answer the Soviet challenge. Eighty-three days later, on 31 January 1958, America's first satellite roared into Earth orbit. A few months after that, Pickering's decision to affiliate JPL with the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration set the basis for his subsequent career and the future of NASA's ambitious program for the exploration of the solar system. In the early days of the space program, failure followed failure as Pickering and his JPL team slowly ascended the learning curve. Eventually, however, NASA and JPL resolve paid off. First the Moon, then Venus, and then Mars yielded their scientific mysteries to JPL spacecraft of ever-increasing sophistication. Within its first decade, JPL-built spacecraft sent back the first close-up photographs of the lunar surface, while others journeyed far beyond the Moon to examine Venus and return the first close-up views of the surface of Mars. Later, even more complex space missions made successful soft-landings on the Moon and on Mars. Pickering's sudden death in March 2004 at the age of 93 was widely reported in the U.S. and overseas. As one NASA official eulogized him, His pioneering work formed the foundation upon which the current program for exploring our solar system was built. On this, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Space Age, it is proper to remind ourselves of the ordinary people who met the extraordinary challenge to make it happen. (most of this is from the left inside flap of the dust jacket) r
