How the scientific community overlooked, ignored, and denied the catastrophic fallout of decades of nuclear testing in the American West In December of 1950, President Harry Truman gave authorization for the Atomic Energy Commission to conduct weapons tests and experiments on a section of a Nevada gunnery range. Over the next eleven years, more than a hundred detonations were conducted at the Nevada Test Site, and radioactive debris dispersed across the communities just downwind and through much of the country. In this important work, James C. Rice tells the hidden story of nuclear weapons testing and the negligence of the US government in protecting public health. Downwind of the Atomic State focuses on the key decisions and events shaping the Commission's mismanagement of radiological contamination in the region, specifically on how the risks of fallout were defined and redefined, or, importantly, not defined at all, owing to organizational mistakes and the impetus to keep atomic testing going at all costs. Rice shows that although Atomic Energy Commission officials understood open-air detonations injected radioactive debris into the atmosphere, they did not understand, or seem to care, that the radioactivity would irrevocably contaminate these communities. The history of the atomic Southwest should be a wake-up call to everyone living in a world replete with large, complex organizations managing risky technological systems. The legacy of open-air detonations in Nevada pushes us to ask about the kinds of risks we are unwittingly living under today. What risks are we being exposed to by large organizations under the guise of security and science?

The military is moving slowly but surely toward a world in which weapons will be stationed in outer space, and officials argue that these developments are essential to the maintenance of US national security in the post-Cold War world. Handberg explores these recent proposals for change and assesses the policy implications that might well result in a challenge to proponents for the militarization of space. Taking the reader through the first "Sputnik" launch and then the Gulf War, the first space war, Handberg introduces his audience to a broad overview of space as an arena for the conduct of military activity. He argues that the new policies are likely to result in a world that is less, not more, secure.

Both technologically and organizationally, the Gulf War served as a watershed for military and political leaders. As a result, the great changes occurring across the spectrum of space activities, as well as the commercial applications of space, have become particularly critical to the field. Handberg argues that one unintended outcome of current policy decisions could well be a resumption of the global arms race as powers jockey for positions in the heavens. Too much of the current military advocacy is premised upon temporary advantages, both military and economic, which will dissipate in time. The political leadership of the United States must be fully engaged in this debate, given its crucial importance for future American national security.

Spacecraft Dynamics and Control: The Embedded Model Control Approach provides a uniform and systematic way of approaching space engineering control problems from the standpoint of model-based control, using state-space equations as the key paradigm for simulation, design and implementation. The book introduces the Embedded Model Control methodology for the design and implementation of attitude and orbit control systems. The logic architecture is organized around the embedded model of the spacecraft and its surrounding environment. The model is compelled to include disturbance dynamics as a repository of the uncertainty that the control law must reject to meet attitude and orbit requirements within the uncertainty class. The source of the real-time uncertainty estimation/prediction is the model error signal, as it encodes the residual discrepancies between spacecraft measurements and model output. The embedded model and the uncertainty estimation feedback (noise estimator in the book) constitute the state predictor feeding the control law. Asymptotic pole placement (exploiting the asymptotes of closed-loop transfer functions) is the way to design and tune feedback loops around the embedded model (state predictor, control law, reference generator). The design versus the uncertainty class is driven by analytic stability and performance inequalities. The method is applied to several attitude and orbit control problems.

This definitive text describes the theory and design both of Air Cushion Vehicles (ACV) and Surface Effect Ships (SES). It begins by introducing hovercraft types and their development and application throughout the world in the last three decades, before going on to discuss the theoretical aspects of ACV and SES craft covering their hovering performance, dynamic trim over calm water, resistance, stability, manoeuvrability, skirt configuration and analysis of forces acting on the skirts, ACV and SES seakeeping, and the methodology of scaling aerodynamic and hydrodynamic forces acting on the ACV/SES from model test data.
The latter chapters describe a design methodology, including design criteria and standard methods for estimating craft performance, lift system design, skirt design, hull structure, propulsion systems and power unit selection. Much technical information, data, and references to further work on hovercraft and SES design is provided. The book will be a useful reference to engineers, technicians, teachers, students (both undergraduate and postgraduate), operators etc. who are involved in ACV/SES research, design, construction and operation.
Guides the reader on how to perform machinery and systems selection within ACV and SES overall design
For teachers, students (both at under- and post-graduate level), engineers and technicians involved in ACV/SES

Well Control for Completions and Interventions explores the standards that ensure safe and efficient production flow, well integrity and well control for oil rigs, focusing on the post-Macondo environment where tighter regulations and new standards are in place worldwide. Too many training facilities currently focus only on the drilling side of the well's cycle when teaching well control, hence the need for this informative guide on the topic. This long-awaited manual for engineers and managers involved in the well completion and intervention side of a well's life covers the fundamentals of design, equipment and completion fluids. In addition, the book covers more important and distinguishing components, such as well barriers and integrity envelopes, well kill methods specific to well completion, and other forms of operations that involve completion, like pumping and stimulation (including hydraulic fracturing and shale), coiled tubing, wireline, and subsea intervention.

In order to reflect the increasing importance and interest of the microsatellites in high technology and scientific applications in space, the Colloquium on Microsatellites as Research Tools was organized to promote its usage and technology development and to foster the international cooperation, especially in the area of the Asia pacific region.

Attended by 150 participants from 18 countries the colloquium was organized into five major themes: regional development, lessons learned, innovations, scientific applications, and education. A special session was organized as well by the organizing committee and supported by the National Space Program Office to present its development of the Taiwan's satellite program and the current status of ROCSAT-1 which is scheduled to be launched at the beginning of 1999.

Two main conclusions were drawn from the material presented: microsatellite in general is a very good means for doing space research and technology development, and a suitable vehicle to promote international collaborations.

This book addresses the hazard of gas explosions in sealed underground coal mines, and how the risk of explosion can be assessed, modeled, and mitigated. With this text, coal mine operators and managers will be able to identify the risks that lead to underground mine gas explosions, and implement practical strategies to optimize mining safety for workers. In six chapters, the book offers a framework for understanding the sealed coal mine atmosphere, the safety characteristics that are currently in place, and the guidelines to be followed by engineers to improve upon these characteristics. The first part of the book describes the importance and characteristics of underground gas mine explosions in a historical context with data showing the high number of fatalities from explosion incidents, and how risk has been mitigated in the past. Chapters also detail mathematical models and explosibility diagrams for determining and understanding the risk factors involved in mine explosions. Readers will also learn about safety operations, and assessments for the sealed mine atmosphere. With descriptions of chapter case studies, mining engineers and researchers will learn how to apply safety measures in underground coal mines to improve mining atmospheres and save lives.

Special Relativity, Electrodynamics, and General Relativity: From Newton to Einstein is intended to teach students of physics, astrophysics, astronomy, and cosmology how to think about special and general relativity in a fundamental but accessible way. Designed to render any reader a "master of relativity," all material on the subject is comprehensible and derivable from first principles. The book emphasizes problem solving, contains abundant problem sets, and is conveniently organized to meet the needs of both student and instructor.

This book on hydrocarbon exploration and production is the first volume in the series Developments in Petroleum Science. The chapters are: The Field Life Cycle, Exploration, Drilling Engineering, Safety and The Environment, Reservoir Description, Volumetric Estimation, Field Appraisal, Reservoir Dynamic Behaviour, Well Dynamic Behaviour, Surface Facilities, Production Operations and Maintenance, Project and Contract Management, Petroleum Economics, Managing the Producing Field, and Decommissioning.

Bio-Geotechnologies for Mine Site Rehabilitation deals with the biological, physical, chemical, and engineering approaches necessary for the reclamation of mine waste. As mining has negative effects on natural resources and deteriorates the quality of the surrounding environment, this book provides coverage across different types of mining industries, which are currently creating industrial deserts overloaded with technogenic waste. The book offers cost-effective strategies and approaches for contaminated sites, along with remediation and rehabilitation methods for contaminated soils and waste dumps. It is an essential resource for students and academics, but is also ideal for applied professionals in environmental geology, mineral geologists, biotechnologists and policymakers.

From the Nasa astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Station - what it's like out there and what it's like now, back here. Enter Scott Kelly's fascinating world and dare to think of your own a little differently.

The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for most consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few of us ever have and very few of us ever will. Kelly's humanity, compassion, humour, and passion shine as he describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal. He touches on what's happened to his body, the sadness of being isolated from everyone he loves; the pressures of constant close cohabitation; the catastrophic risks of colliding with space junk, and the still more haunting threat of being absent should tragedy strike at home.

From a natural storyteller, Endurance is one of the finest examples the triumph of the human imagination, the strength of the human will, and the boundless wonder of the galaxy.

Advances in Coal Mine Ground Control is a comprehensive text covering all recent advances in coal mine ground control, the most advanced subsystem of the rapidly advancing coal mining systems. This complete resource is written by Professor Syd Peng who, alongside leading experts from the world's major coal producing countries, has contributed extensively to the understanding of subsidence from underground coal mining, longwall operations and ground control in underground mines. Syd and the team of contributors bring together key advances from the past decade into one comprehensive resource that is accessible to all those studying, researching and working in the mining industry. This book is an essential text for undergraduate and graduate students of mining engineering and related programs, and a must-have reference for mining, civil and geotechnical engineers.

This volume deals with topical problems concerning technology and design in construction of modern metamaterials. The authors construct the models of mechanical, electromechanical and acoustical behavior of the metamaterials, which are founded upon mechanisms existing on micro-level in interaction of elementary structures of the material. The empiric observations on the phenomenological level are used to test the created models. The book provides solutions, based on fundamental methods and models using the theory of wave propagation, nonlinear theories and composite mechanics for media with micro- and nanostructure. They include the models containing arrays of cracks, defects, with presence of micro- and nanosize piezoelectric elements and coupled physical-mechanical fields of different nature. The investigations show that the analytical, numerical and experimental methods permit evaluation of the qualitative and quantitative properties of the materials of this sort, with diagnosis of their effective characteristics, frequency intervals of effective energetic cutting and passing, as well as effective regimes of damage evaluation by the acoustic methods.