Space Research

Private Human Access to Space Volume 1: Suborbital Flights. In this cosmic study booklet we have provided an overview of the different issues and challenges associated with private suborbital spaceflight. An historical perspective was provided to set the stage for addressing the technical challenges still to be overcome. The various elements required for the business of space tourism, including spaceports, vehicle design, to include interior considerations, were addressed. An assessment of what motivates people towards personal spaceflight as well as the medical requirements that might be imposed were also detailed. Indeed, there is still much to do on the legal side of things as this new enterprise seeks to identify the appropriate legal framework in which to operate. Finally, the market demand, including that for potential payload opportunities, was analyzed and the current international commercial regulations have been presented to provide a complete picture of this emerging business area. A SWOT analysis, highlighting the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats associated with space tourism captures the essential elements under consideration and is the basis for several recommendations.

Recent surveys have provided new and updated information into public insights of the nascent space tourism industry. This book uniquely explores in detail the cutting-edge technologies, spacecraft capabilities, launch vehicles and the training that will define this commercial enterprise. The book also provides a manual for future suborbital and orbital private space explorers. Over half of the book is dedicated to providing for the first time essential training material for private spaceflight participants. This book provides a much needed, well-rounded understanding of what promises to be the most dynamic and exciting industry in the world.

Mars Outpost provides a detailed insight into the various technologies, mission architectures, medical requirements, and training needed to send humans to Mars. It focuses on mission objectives and benefits, and the risks and complexities that are compounded when linked to an overall planet exploration program involving several expeditions and setting up a permanent presence on the surface.

Most Americans equate space exploration with NASA, but the general public is largely unaware that hundreds of passionate individuals and private organizations are working to allow ordinary people the opportunity to tour near space and to create permanent human settlements on Mars and other celestial bodies. Through a series of fascinating interviews, this book introduces the scientists, astronauts, engineers, and entrepreneurs behind the private space movement and offers a clear-eyed assessment of their prospects for success. The legal, ethical, and political challenges facing the exploitation of space resources are also explored, and issues such as environmental responsibility, safety, law enforcement, property rights, patents, and government policy are discussed.

This is a book about the business of space. It is indeed the first such book which explores the creation of the whole new field of commercial space exploration, previously considered to be an oxymoron. Starting with the transformation of the original governmental and military space programs into the successful satellite communications businesses, it then builds the case for moving forward to full commercial space exploration, with space tourism and therefore commercial space transportation being the key to this paradigm shift. The author has been involved in all these phases of development as a business insider, and is currently one of the international judges of The Google Lunar XPRIZE which is using prizes to kickstart the lunar commerce business. He brings us unprecedented insights, including accounts and details of multi-million dollar satellite and launch vehicle negotiations. Webber's data-packed narrative is supported with a fascinating selection of illustrations, many being published for the first time.

The global space sector has always been regarded as a cutting-edge field, futuristic and at the forefront of innovation. In recent years, the sector has undergone massive change, giving rise to a high-technology niche worth over $330 billion in revenues worldwide and growing. That process, encompassing a greater and more diverse set of actors, has been described as the "democratization of space." Above and Beyond: Exploring the Business of Space provides a comprehensive and current overview of the business of space and its distinctive competitive dynamics. The book explores the commercialization of space, taking the reader on a journey from the era of the Space Race up to the present and beyond. Focusing on both state and commercial actors, the book provides an exhaustive panoramic view of an area of growing human endeavour and ambition that is both informative and fascinating. As the business of space continues to develop and grow at a remarkable pace, the book offers a thoughtful and timely analysis of its past, present and future scenarios. While providing a critical assessment of the business of space, this book offers valuable insights to academics, policy makers and anyone with a keen interest in the sector, as well as useful lessons from emerging commercial and traditional space actors that have broader applicability to other industries and their managers.

The pace of space exploration has long been dictated by political motivations. This book helps to explain why this is so in the post-Cold War era. Combining essays, a glossary of terms, tables and statistics, this new title from Routledge comes as a welcome addition to this increasingly popular topic. The book: covers theories and concepts, as well as current issues gives a background to international and national space agencies contains essays that cover military, commercial and governmental actors in space politics.

Handberg offers a historical analysis of the international politicians, economists, scientists, and industrialists who have sought to create an entrepreneurial space program, and he brings a current political perspective to the risks, goals, and predicted rewards of space commerce, which may include such enterprises as launch vehicles, telecommunications, and remote sensing.

This work introduces the important emerging space powers of the world. Brian Harvey describes the origins of the Japanese space program, from rocket designs based on WW II German U-boats to tiny solid fuel 'pencil' rockets, which led to the launch of the first Japanese satellite in 1970. The next two chapters relate how Japan expanded its space program, developing small satellites into astronomical observatories and sending missions to the Moon, Mars, comet Halley, and asteroids. Chapter 4 describes how India's Vikram Sarabhai developed a sounding rocket program in the 1960s. The following chapter describes the expansion of the Indian space program. Chapter 6 relates how the Indian space program is looking ahead to the success of the moon probe Chandrayan, due to launch in 2008, and its first manned launching in 2014. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 demonstrate how, in Iran, communications and remote sensing drive space technology. Chapter 10 outlines Brazil's road to space, begun in the mid-1960's with the launch of the Sonda sounding rockets. The following two chapters describe Brazil's satellites and space launch systems and plans for the future. Chapters 13 and 14 study Israel's space industry. The next chapters look at the burgeoning space programs of North and South Korea. The book ends by contrasting and comparing all the space programs and speculating how they may evolve in the future. An appendix lists all launches and launch attempts to date of the emerging space powers.

"Interplanetary Outpost" follows the mission architecture template of NASA's plan for Human Outer Planet Exploration (HOPE), which envisions sending a crew to the moon Callisto to conduct exploration and sample return activities. To realize such a mission, the spacecraft will be the most complex interplanetary vehicle ever built, representing the best technical efforts of several nations. A wealth of new technologies will need to be developed, including new propulsion systems, hibernation strategies, and revolutionary radiation shielding materials. Step by step, the book will describe how the mission architecture will evolve, how crews will be selected and trained, and what the mission will entail from launch to landing. However, the focus of "Interplanetary Outpost" is on the human element. The extended duration, logistical challenges, radiation concerns, communication lag times, isolation, and deleterious effects on the human body will conspire to not only significantly impair human performance but also affect the behavior of crewmembers. This book addresses each of these issues in detail while still providing the reader with a background to the necessary elements comprising such a mission.

The launch of the first rocket in 1926 led to the development of the first long-range missile - the A4, renamed V2 - fired in anger during the Second World War. The technology had advanced by 1957, to enable the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to be developed. This missile formed the basis of the first launch vehicle to carry a satellite, Sputnik 1, into orbit, marking the beginning of the Space Age. Since then the Moon, all the planets in the solar system except Pluto, and an asteroid and a comet have been explored by spacecraft. Since the Space Age began, twelve men have walked on the Moon, and over 400 people have experienced space travel. Satellites now provide the world with a range of services from environmental monitoring to mobile phone calls. Space station operations have become routine. The Hubble Space Telescope has enabled astronomers to peer 12 billion years into the past and to take their first look at a black hole. What else will be achieved in the coming decades, as space exploration takes on a new momentum?

Designed as ready-reference tools providing key data on social concerns, these books save researchers and students from the cumbersome task of locating the various data in pamphlets, legal journals, congressional reports, newspapers and other sources. No other reference series offers such complete and up-to-date information on current social issues. The series is available as a complete set or in Issue Groups. Volumes are completely revised and updated every two years.

During 1988, the National Research Council's Space Science Board reorganized itself to more effectively address NASA's advisory needs. The Board's scope was broadened: it was renamed the Space Studies Board and, among other new initiatives, the Committee on Human Exploration was created. The new committee was intended to focus on the scientific aspects of human exploration programs, rather than engineering issues. Their research led to three reports: Scientific Prerequisites for the Human Exploration of Space published in 1993, Scientific Opportunities in the Human Exploration of Space published in 1994, and Science Management in the Human Exploration of Space published in 1997. These three reports are collected and reprinted in this volume in their entirety as originally published.

This thorough examination of the roots and motivations for U.S. national security space policy provides an essential foundation for considering current space security issues; Provides a succinct analysis of key current national security space issues that includes all key national security space policy statements from 1955 to the present day; Presents an extensive chronology of events from the mid-20th century to the present; Contains 45 biographies of politicians, NASA officials, and military personnel who have shaped U.S. space policy; Includes a descriptive directory of government and private organizations, including advocacy groups, government agencies, and advisory committees

A New York Times bestseller!  The historic race that reawakened the promise of manned spaceflight A Finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award   Alone in a Spartan black cockpit, test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed toward space. He had eighty seconds to exceed the speed of sound and begin the climb to a target no civilian pilot had ever reached. He might not make it back alive. If he did, he would make history as the world's first commercial astronaut. The spectacle defied reason, the result of a competition dreamed up by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, whose vision for a new race to space required small teams to do what only the world's largest governments had done before. Peter Diamandis was the son of hardworking immigrants who wanted their science prodigy to make the family proud and become a doctor. But from the age of eight, when he watched Apollo 11 land on the Moon, his singular goal was to get to space. When he realized NASA was winding down manned space flight, Diamandis set out on one of the great entrepreneurial adventure stories of our time. If the government wouldn't send him to space, he would create a private space flight industry himself.   In the 1990s, this idea was the stuff of science fiction. Undaunted, Diamandis found inspiration in an unlikely place: the golden age of aviation. He discovered that Charles Lindbergh made his transatlantic flight to win a $25,000 prize. The flight made Lindbergh the most famous man on earth and galvanized the airline industry. Why, Diamandis thought, couldn't the same be done for space flight?   The story of the bullet-shaped SpaceShipOne, and the other teams in the hunt, is an extraordinary tale of making the impossible possible. It is driven by outsized characters--Burt Rutan, Richard Branson, John Carmack, Paul Allen--and obsessive pursuits. In the end, as Diamandis dreamed, the result wasn't just a victory for one team; it was the foundation for a new industry and a new age.

Dragon V2 is a futuristic vehicle that not only provides a means for NASA to transport its astronauts to the orbiting outpost but also advances SpaceX's core objective of reusability. A direct descendant of Dragon, Dragon V2 can be retrieved, refurbished and re-launched. It is a spacecraft with the potential to completely revolutionize the economics of an industry where equipment costing hundreds of millions of dollars is routinely discarded after a single use. It was presented by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in May 2014 as the spaceship that will carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station as soon as 2016. SpaceX's Dragon - America's Next Generation Spacecraft describes the extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement that have placed this revolutionary spacecraft at the forefront of the launch industry and positioned it as the precursor for ultimately transporting humans to Mars. It describes the design and development of Dragon, provides mission highlights of the first six Commercial Resupply Missions, and explains how Musk hopes to eventually colonize Mars.

This book is dedicated to important issues concerning Space Shuttle retirement and transition to the next generation of human space flight systems. Emphasis is placed on the issues of costs, suppliers, transition progress, environmental risks, and mission identification and scope.

The revised edition of this practical, hands-on book discusses the launch vehicles in use today throughout the world, and includes the latest details on advanced systems being developed, such as electric and nuclear propulsion. The author covers the fundamentals, from the basic principles of rocket propulsion and vehicle dynamics through the theory and practice of liquid and solid propellant motors, to new and future developments. He provides a serious exposition of the principles and practice of rocket propulsion, from the point of view of the user who is not an engineering specialist.

Welcome Aboard! You are about to embark on a spectacular adventure, blazing a trail for future space travel in the world's greatest flying machine. Prepare for lift-off using the step-by-step instructions for launch and ascent. Soar into the sky consulting the authentic gatefold reproduction of the Shuttle's instrument panel. Operate the remote manipulator arm, the space telescope, and the data relay satellite as you communicate with ground control. Chart your space flight using the authentic fold-out orbital map. Hurtle back through the Earth's atmosphere to land the aircraft gently like a glider. Congratulations! We hope your mission is rewarding and fascinating! Sincerely, Directorate for Crew Training Written for the layperson by curators at the National Air and Space Museum, with colorful illustrations throughout, THE SPACE SHUTTLE OPERATOR'S MANUAL takes the reader through all the motions of an actual mission -- from preparation to takeoff to orbit to re-entry.

A reference companion to the author's first book - Space Transportation: A Systems Approach to Analysis and Design - this book captures the design methodologies, engineering disciplines and design/analysis computer codes in more detail. The first three chapters as a unit cover the overall Space Transportation System (STS) vehicle analysis and design process. The next six chapters and Chapter 11 cover the primary disciplines involved in this complex process. Chapter 10 deals with multidisciplinary design optimization as applied to STS. Finally, Chapters 12-14 include remaining topics germane to STS design methodologies. The two books as a series aim to give the reader a comprehensive understanding of STS analysis, engineering and design.

A reference with details on launch programs around the world, performance data, flight records, failure descriptions and more. Organized alphabetically by system it reflects the international cooperation in vehicle development, marketing and operation.

How do engineers respond to ethical dilemmas that occur in practice? How do they view their individual and collective responsibilities? How do they make decisions before all the facts are in? Using the space shuttle programme as the framework, this book examines the role of ethical decision making in the practice of engineering. In particular, the book considers the design and development of the main engines of the space shuttle as a paradigm for how individual engineers perceive, articulate, and resolve ethical dilemmas in a large, complex organisation. A series of in-depth case studies show engineers at work on various stages of the project as they balance budgets, deadlines and risks. By documenting the historical development of a single system, the book provides a unique opportunity to explore the complex interactions between political, organisational and technical pressures and engineering and management decisions.