The space between the stars contains a large diversity of objects in which physical processes occur that are fundamental to the structure and evolution of galaxies. This book offers the reader a basic knowledge of these processes and presents simple numeric estimates of the main quantities relevant to the interstellar medium. The main objects that constitute the interstellar space are described, but the emphasis of the book lies in the physical processes occurring in these objects, which may also occur in other astrophysical environments. The book is directed tor graduate as well as advanced undergraduate students of physics and astrophysics.

Rare views of the beginnings of a historic space programAfter the excitement of the first Moon landing, the U.S. space program took an ambitious new direction closer to home: NASA's Space Shuttle program promised frequent access to Earth orbit for medical and scientific breakthroughs; deploying, repairing and maintaining satellites; and assembling a space station. Picturing the Space Shuttle is the first photographic history of the program's early years as the world's first space plane debuted. Showcasing over 450 unpublished and lesser-known images, this book traces the growth of the Space Shuttle from 1965 to 1982, from initial concept through its first four space flights. The photographs offer windows into designing the first reusable space vehicle as well as the construction and testing of the prototype shuttle Enterprise. They also show the factory assembly and delivery of the Space Shuttle Columbia, preparations at the major NASA field centers, and astronaut selection and training. Finally, the book devotes a chapter to each of the first four orbital missions, STS-1 through STS-4, providing an abundance of seldom seen photos for each flight. Mostly selected from J. L. Pickering's personal archive, the world's largest private collection of U.S. human space flight images, the high-quality photographs in this book are paired with veteran journalist John Bisney's detailed descriptions and historical background information. The book also includes images of NASA and Shuttle contractor booklets, manuals, access badges, and press kits, as well as a foreword by Robert Crippen, the pilot of the first Space Shuttle flight. Picturing the Space Shuttle recreates the excitement of an era in which the possibilities of space exploration seemed limitless.

Random waves are the most important constituent of the sea environment, as they make the design of maritime structures quite different from that of structures on land. In this book, the concept of random waves for the design of breakwaters, seawalls, and harbor structures is fully explored for easy comprehension by practicing engineers. Theoretical aspects are also discussed in detail for further studies by graduate students and researchers.

Given the universal interest in whether extraterrestrial life has developed or could eventually develop, it is vital that an examination of planetary habitability go beyond simple assumptions. This book has resulted from a workshop at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) which brought together experts to discuss the multi-faceted problem of how the habitability of a planet co-evolves with the geology of the surface and interior, the atmosphere, and the magnetosphere.

The central aim of the "Sunrise "project is to understand the structure and dynamics of the magnetic field in the solar atmosphere. The magnetic field is the source of solar activity, controls the space environment of the Earth and causes the variability of solar irradiance, which may be a significant driver of long-term changes of the terrestrial climate. Interacting with the convective plasma flow, the magnetic field in the solar photosphere develops intense field concentrations on scales below 100 km, which are crucial for the dynamics and energetics of the whole solar atmosphere. These spatial scales cannot be studied systematically from the ground because of image distortions due to atmospheric turbulence. The balloon-borne "Sunrise" telescope has, for the first time, provided measurements of the magnetic structure of the solar atmosphere on its intrinsic spatial and temporal scales. The book gives an overview about the instrumentation and the successful flight in 2009.

Putting the "I" in IHY This book is about international cooperation. It demonstrates how the power of scienti?c imagination and investigation can bring together people form all continents in almost all countries around the globe. In presenting this impressive result, we can understand, how much unifying force the quest for understanding our universe and using outer space for that purpose have. Astronomy is far away from being a "political" area of science. But is has enormous political effects - and all of these effects are positive. This book about the international aspects and achievements of the "International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007" can be regarded as a compendium of the fertile impacts of conducting research in this ?eld. The main focus, as the title implicates, is the international cooperation, which has emerged from this grassroots initiative. North and South, industrialized and developing countries have been coordinating their efforts and have been learning from each other in a mutual partnership under a joint understanding of sharing the scienti?c bene?ts. Through this, trans-border networks have been created and scienti?c as well as cultural exchange took place.

Analytical solutions to the orbital motion of celestial objects have been nowadays mostly replaced by numerical solutions, but they are still irreplaceable whenever speed is to be preferred to accuracy, or to simplify a dynamical model. In this book, the most common orbital perturbations problems are discussed according to the Lie transforms method, which is the de facto standard in analytical orbital motion calculations.

This book provides a broad overview of spaciousness in music theory, from mixing and performance practice, to room acoustics, psychoacoustics and audio engineering, and presents the derivation, implementation and experimental validation of a novel type of spatial audio system. Discussing the physics of musical instruments and the nature of auditory perception, the book enables readers to precisely localize synthesized musical instruments while experiencing their timbral variance and spatial breadth. Offering interdisciplinary insights for novice music enthusiasts and experts in the field of spatial audio, this book is suitable for anyone interested in the study of music and musicology and the application of spatial audio mixing, or those seeking an overview of the state of the art in applied psychoacoustics for spatial audio.

"Vibro-Acoustics of Lightweight Sandwich Structures" introduces the study of the coupled vibration and acoustic behavior of lightweight sandwich structures in response to harmonic force and sound pressure. This book focuses on the theoretical modeling and experimental investigation of lightweight sandwich structures in order to provide a predictive framework for vibro-acoustic characteristics of typical engineering structures. Furthermore, by developing solution tools, it concentrates on the influence of key systematic parameters leading to effective guidance for optimal structure design toward lightweight, high-stiffness and superior sound insulation capability.

This book is intended for researchers, scientists, engineers and graduate students in mechanical engineering especially in structural mechanics, mechanics and acoustics.

Fengxian Xin and Tianjian Lu both work at the School of Aerospace, Xi an Jiaotong University."

This book focuses on the theory and design of special space orbits. Offering a systematic and detailed introduction to the hovering orbit, spiral cruising orbit, multi-target rendezvous orbit, initiative approaching orbit, responsive orbit and earth pole-sitter orbit, it also discusses the concept, theory, design methods and application of special space orbits, particularly the design and control method based on kinematics and astrodynamics. In addition the book presents the latest research and its application in space missions. It is intended for researchers, engineers and postgraduates, especially those working in the fields of orbit design and control, as well as space-mission planning and research.

11 11/16 X 8 1/4 in

This book provides the latest scientific understanding of the Sun, sharing insights gleaned from the international solar physics project Hinode. The authors (who are the main project contributors) review, from the various viewpoints, the discoveries and advances made by the on-orbit operations of the Hinode spacecraft in its first decade. Further, they present a wealth of scientifically important photographs and data from Hinode. Launched in September 2006, Hinode is the third Japanese solar observatory on orbit, and employs three highly advanced telescopes jointly developed and operated with international partners. The book describes the background of these research topics, how the Hinode telescopes have tackled various challenges, and the scientific achievements and impacts in the first 10 years. Furthermore, it explores future perspective of researches in Japan. The book will benefit undergraduate students interested in recent advance in the solar research, as well as graduate students and researchers working in solar physics, the space sciences, astronomy, and plasma physics.

This book discusses the principles, methodologies, and challenges of robotic musicianship through an in-depth review of the work conducted at the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology (GTCMT), where the concept was first developed. Robotic musicianship is a relatively new research field that focuses on the design and development of intelligent music-making machines. The motivation behind the field is to develop robots that not only generate music, but also collaborate with humans by listening and responding in an expressive and creative manner. This combination of human and machine creativity has the potential to surprise and inspire us to play, listen, compose, and think about music in new ways. The book provides an in-depth view of the robotic platforms designed at the GTCMT Robotic Musicianship Group, including the improvisational robotic percussionists Haile and Shimon, the personal robotic companion Shimi, and a number of wearable robots, such as the Robotic Drumming Prosthesis, The Third Drumming Arm, and the Skywalker Piano Hand. The book discusses numerous research studies based on these platforms in the context of five main principles: Listen like a Human, Play Like a Machine, Be Social, Watch and Learn, and Wear It.

This book provides detailed insights into how space and its applications are, and can be, used to support the development of the full range and diversity of African societies, as encapsulated in the African Union's Agenda 2063. Like previous books in the "Southern Space Studies" series, it focuses on the role of space in supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals in Africa, but it covers an even more extensive array of relevant and timely topics addressing all facets of African development. It demonstrates that, while great achievements have been made in recent years in terms of economic and social development, which has lifted many of Africa's people out of poverty, there is still much that needs to be done to fulfill the basic needs of Africa's citizens and afford them the dignity they deserve: to this end space is already being employed in diverse fields of human endeavor to serve Africa's goals for its future, but there is much room for further incorporation of space systems and data. Providing a comprehensive overview of the role space is playing in achieving Africa's developmental aspirations, the book is of great interest to both students and professionals in fields such as space studies, international relations, governance, social and rural development, and many others.

Over the last two decades, the image of the U.S. space program has become seriously tarnished. Its problems have ranged from massive cost overruns to serious program delays to catastrophic mission failures. The space program, once the most prominent symbol of American scientific and technological preeminence, now seems but one more example of government bumbling, extravagance, and waste. In this study, Kay examines the recent problems of the space program and finds that NASA's failures, like its earlier successes, are ultimately traceable to the way the American political system operates. Asking can democracies fly in space?, the author suggests that the traditional workings of democratic politics actually exacerbates those very features of space projects--size, expense, and complexity--that make their development so difficult in the first place.

Former NASA Astronaut Harrison Schmitt advocates a private, investor-based approach to returning humans to the Moon-to extract Helium 3 for energy production, to use the Moon as a platform for science and manufacturing, and to establish permanent human colonies there in a kind of stepping stone community on the way to deeper space. With governments playing a supporting role-just as they have in the development of modern commercial aeronautics and agricultural production-Schmitt believes that a fundamentally private enterprise is the only type of organization capable of sustaining such an effort and, eventually, even making it pay off.

This volume explores the cross-linkages between the kinetic processes and macroscopic phenomena in the solar atmosphere, which are at the heart of our current understanding of the heating of the closed and open corona and the acceleration of the solar wind. The focus lies on novel data, on theoretical models that have observable consequences through remote sensing, and on near-solar and inner-heliosphere observations, such as anticipated by the upcoming Solar Orbiter and Solar Probe missions, which are currently developed by the international community. This volume is aimed at students and researchers active in solar physics and space science. Previously published in Space Science Reviews journal, Vol. 172, Nos. 1-4, 2012.

Compliant mechanisms and actuators are growing in importance due to their benefits in robotics, medical technology, sensor applications, or in handling compressible objects. This book helps to understand the mechanical behavior of compliant systems. Suggested classifications and different modeling methods are shown that allow for the description of compliant systems.

This book collects lectures of an international NATO-Russian Advanced Research Workshop on Detection and Disposal of Improvised Explosives (IE) used by terrorists. The disposal of IE is especially dangerous, because they are often much more unstable and mechanically more sensitive than commercial or military explosives. This text covers detection of explosives by different analytical methods and the different shape and compositions of the explosive charge, and offers up-to-date advice on handling and disposal.

This book reviews a variety of methods for wave-based acoustic simulation and recent applications to architectural and environmental acoustic problems. Following an introduction providing an overview of computational simulation of sound environment, the book is in two parts: four chapters on methods and four chapters on applications. The first part explains the fundamentals and advanced techniques for three popular methods, namely, the finite-difference time-domain method, the finite element method, and the boundary element method, as well as alternative time-domain methods. The second part demonstrates various applications to room acoustics simulation, noise propagation simulation, acoustic property simulation for building components, and auralization. This book is a valuable reference that covers the state of the art in computational simulation for architectural and environmental acoustics.