Pages 38 A simple, fun, and modern introduction to our solar system. Our solar neighborhood is an exciting place. The Solar System is full of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, minor planets, and many other exciting objects. Learn about Io, the explosive moon that orbits the planet Jupiter, or explore the gigantic canyons and deserts on Mars. The Solar System is made up of all the planets that orbit our Sun. In addition to planets, the Solar System also consists of moons, comets, asteroids, minor planets, and dust and gas. Everything in the Solar System orbits or revolves around the Sun. The Sun contains around 98% of all the material in the Solar System. The larger an object is, the more gravity it has. Because the Sun is so large, its powerful gravity attracts all the other objects in the Solar System towards it. At the same time, these objects, which are moving very rapidly, try to fly away from the Sun, outward into the emptiness of outer space. The result of the planets trying to fly away, at the same time that the Sun is trying to pull them inward is that they become trapped half-way in between. Balanced between flying towards the Sun, and escaping into space, they spend eternity orbiting around their parent star.

Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoirs of Academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap. This official NASA history series document has been converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. In this Volume 2, Chertok takes up the story with the development of the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and ends with the launch of Sputnik and the early Moon, Mars, and Venus probes. His engaging accounts of these dramatic and historic years reveal repeated failures, technical problems, and governmental struggles that marked the opening of the space race in the Soviet Union. An extensive technical discussion provides new details about the tragic Nedelin Disaster in October 1960 which killed over 100 workers attempting to launch an ICBM. Chertok calls it most horrific disaster in the history of missile and space technology. Contents: Three New Technologies, Three State Committees * The Return * From Usedom Island to Gorodomlya Island * Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor * The Alliance with Science * Department U * Face to Face with the R-1 Missile * The R-1 Missile Goes Into Service * Managers and Colleagues * NII-885 and Other Institutes * Air Defense Missiles * Flying by the Stars * Missiles of the Cold War's First Decade * On the First Missile Submarine * Prologue to Nuclear Strategy * The Seven Problems of the R-7 Missile * The Birth of a Firing Range * 15 May 1957 * No Time for a Breather * Mysterious Illness * Breakthrough into Space * Flight-Development Tests Continue * The R-7 Goes into Service * From Tyuratam to the Hawaiian Islands and Beyond * Lunar Assault * Back at RNII * The Great Merger * First School of Control in Space * Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly to Koshka * The Beginning of the 1960s * Onward to Mars...and Venus * Catastrophes Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow. Twenty-seven years later, he became deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the mysterious Chief Designer Sergey Korolev. Chertok's sixty-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People. In these writings, spread over four volumes, Academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a society's quest to explore the cosmos. NASA issued a statement about the passing of this pioneer: Russian rocket designer Boris Yevseyevich Chertok, one of the founding fathers of the Russian space program, passed away on Dec. 14, 2011 at the age of 99. We share the loss of Boris Chertok with our Russian colleagues, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations. He was he a spaceflight pioneer and an inspiration to everyone associated with spaceflight. I remember him coming into the control center in Moscow in the middle of the night at the age of 97. He was an inspiration to every flight controller in Moscow. I also remember fondly sitting in Korolev's apartment in Moscow, now a museum, and having Boris describe meetings with Korolev, the general designer, at his kitchen table. The passion in Boris' eyes and voice gave me a unique insight into the Russian team and operations. Boris's speech this year at the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight was amazing and awe inspiring. His books and memoirs are a true treasure. He was a friend of NASA and he will be missed. His spirit will live on in the hearts of the Russian and American human spaceflight team. NASA SP-2006-4110.

In this third volume of a planned four-volume set of memoirs, the famous Russian spacecraft designer Boris Chertok, who worked under the legendary Sergey Korolev, continues his fascinating narrative on the early history of the Soviet space program, from 1961 to 1967, arguably the peak of the effort. Chertok devotes a significant portion of the volume to the early years of Soviet human space flight in the early 1960's. These include a chapter on the Vostok and Voskhod programs, which left an indelible mark on early years of the "space race," a lengthy meditation on the origins and early missions of the Soyuz space program, the flight and death of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov during the very first piloted Soyuz flight in 1967. Additional chapters cover robotic programs such as the Molniya communications satellite system, the Zenit spy satellite program, and the Luna series of probes that culminated in the world's first survivable landing of a probe on the surface of the Moon. Chertok also devotes several chapters to the development of early generations of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles and missile defense systems. Chertok's chapter on the Cuban Missile Crisis provides a radically unique perspective on the crisis, from the point of view of those who would have been responsible for unleashing nuclear Armageddon in 1962 had Kennedy and Khrushchev not been able to agree on a stalemate. Two further chapters cover the untimely deaths of the most important luminaries of the era: Sergey Korolev and Yuriy Gagarin. Finally, historians of Soviet science will find much of the interest in the concluding chapter focused on the relationship between the space program and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. NASA SP-2009-4110.

Space and Space Travel is a comprehensive introductory overview of subject matter related to exploration of the solar system. After an initial discussion of energy, power, and the atom, the book explores the Sun and its impact on planets and the space environment, the conditions in space, the fundamentals of space travel, and planetary destinations. Specific topics include the solar interior and atmosphere, space plasma environments and weather, advanced propulsion, the inner solar system, and asteroids and beyond. Photographs, charts, and graphs support the text and enhance learning. Space and Space Travel is broadly based, and can be used in classes that discuss planetary science, space science, space technology, and human space flight. It is suitable for junior and senior level high school courses, as well as survey courses at the university level. The book is also an excellent jumping off point for technical classes that explore a specific topic in detail, but require general background knowledge.

On 12th April 1981 a revolutionary new spacecraft blasted off from Florida on her maiden flight. NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia was the most advanced flying machine ever built - the high watermark of post-war aviation development. A direct descendant of the record-breaking X-planes the likes of which Chuck Yeager had tested in the skies over the Mojave Desert, Columbia was a winged rocket plane, the size of an airliner, capable of flying to space and back before being made ready to fly again. She was the world's first real spaceship. On board were men with the Right Stuff. The Shuttle's Commander, moonwalker John Young, was already a veteran of five spaceflights. Alongside him, Pilot Bob Crippen was making his first, but Crip, taken in by the space agency after the cancellation of a top secret military space station programme in 1969, had worked on the Shuttle's development for a decade. Never before had a crew been so well prepared for their mission. Yet less than an hour after Young and Crippen's spectacular departure from the Cape it was clear that all was not well. Tiles designed to protect Columbia from the blowtorch burn of re-entry were missing from the heatshield. If the damage to their ship was too great the astronauts would be unable to return safely to earth. But neither they nor mission control possessed any way of knowing. Instead, NASA turned to the National Reconnaissance Office, a spy agency hidden deep inside the Pentagon whose very existence was classified. To help, the NRO would attempt something that had never been done before. Success would require skill, pinpoint timing and luck ... Drawing on brand new interviews with astronauts and engineers, archive material and newly declassified documents, Rowland White, bestselling author of Vulcan 607, has pieced together the dramatic untold story of the mission for the first time. Into the Black is a thrilling race against time; a gripping high stakes cold-war story, and a celebration of a beyond the state-of-the-art machine that, hailed as one of the seven new wonders of the world, rekindled our passion for spaceflight. *With a foreword by Astronaut Richard Truly* 'Beautifully researched and written, Into the Black tells the true, complete story of the Space Shuttle better than it's ever been told before.' Colonel Chris Hadfield, former Astronaut and Space Station Commander 'Brilliantly revealed, Into the Black is the finely tuned true story of the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Rowland White has magnificently laid bare the unknown dangers and unseen hazards of that first mission ... Once read, not forgotten.' Clive Cussler

Just what is life? What do we really know about God? What do we really know about the universe? Is there intelligent life out there? Are we likely to encounter aliens in our lifetime? Is there more than one universe? Will parallel universes soon be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt? These are just some of the questions that two friend have been asking since we were in grammar school together over 70 years ago. We have continued to speculate with each other about life, the universe, and the great unknowns that cause mankind to be such a special species here on earth. We have been living in different states, Mississippi and Florida, since high school graduation. One of us became an aerospace engineer and later a Vice President at Lockheed Martin Aerospace Company. The other became a trial attorney and went into private law practice. But we still meet, write, email and discuss our evolving thoughts and ideas. We recently decided to meet in Homosassa Springs Florida for a few days to chat about our ideas and see just what we really think about the answers to all the great questions of life and the universe. And although we did not discuss it outright, it was obvious that we may have been motivated to have this meeting because of increased interests in seeking answers to the questions: do we have souls and if so, is there an afterlife. We met in the wilderness of the springs to discuss and try to find the best answers available based on what mankind has learned to date and based on the life long questioning of two very curious old men. A series of modern day scientists and physicists from Einstein to Hubble to Heisenberg to Kaku to Hawking have postulated theories in an attempt to answer our most complex questions. Their once unconceivable theories are rapidly becoming acceptable and practical as billions of dollars are now being spent to test and prove the validity of their theories. We collected their findings and theories and drew our own conclusions about Life and the Universe and are publishing them in this book. We tackle some of the biggest questions of mankind with the confidence that we can arrive at the truth and convey that truth in comprehensible narrative. We felt that our findings and understandings would be of general interest to a wide audience, especially the 79 million baby boomers in the United States. We also thought that young people who are just beginning to form their opinions of life and the universe would find our materials interesting and useful. We hope you enjoy our efforts and even if you cannot agree with all of our conclusions we hope this book will stimulate you to continue to seek the truth about everything that is important to you. We are awed at the enormity of our universe. We have walked in the forests and by streams and are awed at the great variety and complexity of life here on earth. When we look into our deep oceans we see extreme life forms living even in the very hot volcanic vent flows from the ocean floor. Some of these life forms look like monsters from our imaginations. We have provided pictures of these alien creatures. We have found life in the extreme arctic conditions at the poles. Life here on earth occupies all environments no matter how severe. This suggests that we should therefore expect life on essentially all of the trillions of planets in our universe that have life acceptable temperatures. We believe that we will soon learn that millions if not billions of these alien life forms are intelligent; and thousands if not millions are more advanced than are we. It's just a matter of statistics and the older age of so many of the planets. All of our speculations lead back to the question: is there a God. We attempt to provide our views and the science on which we base our views. We hope that our efforts will, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes, stretch your mind with a new experience and perhaps change your life.

The work described in this paper was carried out by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contact with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The support of the NASA Headquarters Office of Chief Engineer for the development and documentation of the force limited vibration testing technology described in this monograph is gratefully acknowledged.

This curriculum guide uses hands-on activities to help student and teachers understand the significance of space-based astronomy- astronomical observation made from outer space.

The formation of ice on wings and other control surfaces of airplanes is one of the oldest and most vexing problems that aircraft engineers and scientists continue to face. While no easy, comprehensive answers exist, the staff at NASA's Icing Research Tunnel at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland has done pioneering work to make flight safer for experimental, commercial, and military consumers.