This book provides an annual update on recent space launches, missions and results. The annual, written for both young and older space enthusiasts, provides a regular, balanced review of all the world's major space programmes. It covers space exploration from a variety of angles: looking back at past missions, reviewing those currently under way and looking to those planned for the future. The ten invited contributions each year will cover a variety of topics within these areas. The book is for space enthusiasts from teens upwards through to professionals working in the worldwide space industry and journalists covering space issues.

Discover the wonders of the Universe with this complete introduction to observing and understanding the night sky. This practical guide explains and demystifies stargazing, teaching you to recognize different kinds of objects and showing you how they move through the sky over the course of the night and the year. It shows you how to understand and enjoy the cosmos, building your practical astronomy skills from the basics to more advanced techniques. Beginning with an explanation of the Universe itself - how big is it, what shape is it, how old is it, and will it end? - it then takes you on a tour around the night sky, building up your knowledge in simple stages. Practical advice begins with naked-eye observations, then illustrated step-by-step instructions show you how to set up and use binoculars and telescopes, and how to take your own pictures of the night sky. It also lets you take a closer look at the different objects you can view in the night sky, telling you how to train your eye to recognize basic patterns of stars (constellations) and how to tell planets apart from other celestial bodies, showing you how to observe them in an innovative step-by-step way. An atlas of the night sky is also included, with charts that can be used in both the northern and southern hemispheres throughout the year. Accessible, inspirational, and authoritative, Stargazing for Beginners will enthuse and inform anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of the night sky.

The aim of this book (and subsequent volumes issued annually) is to provide an annual astronomy review suitable for the popular science level reader. It will be published every year in September in a format suitable for an appeal to the Christmas market. The book will cover all major astronomical news on topics beyond the Solar System and place them in the context of the longer term goals that astronomers and astrophysicists around the world are aiming for. The target is to capture the excitement of modern astronomical research enabling reader to stay up-to-date with its rapid pace and development.

In The Art of Astrophotography, astronomer and Popular Astronomy columnist Ian Morison provides the essential foundations of how to produce beautiful astronomical images. Every type of astroimaging is covered, from images of the Moon and planets, to the constellations, star clusters and nebulae within our Milky Way Galaxy and the faint light of distant galaxies. He achieves this through a series of worked examples and short project walk-throughs, detailing the equipment needed - starting with just a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera and tripod, and increasing in complexity as the book progresses - followed by the way to best capture the images and then how, step by step, these may be processed and enhanced to provide results that can rival those seen in astronomical magazines and books. Whether you are just getting into astrophotography or are already deeply involved, Morison's advice will help you capture and create enticing astronomical images.

What can you measure and what are your limits when orbiting in space? Learn about what physical quantities you can measure and what types of sensors you can buy or build. We cover the 5 essential design limits as well: power, bandwidth, resolution, computing... and legal limitations. Explore what you can play with using your own personal satellite.

Sacred Geometry exists all around us in the natural world, from the unfurling of a rose bud to the pattern of a tortoise shell, the sub-atomic to the galactic. A pure expression of number and form, it is the language of creation and navigates the unseen dimensions beyond our three-dimensional reality. Since its discovery, humans have found many ways - stone circles, mandalas, labyrinths, temples- to call upon this universal law as a way of raising consciousness and communicating with a divine source. By becoming aware of the dots and lines that build the world around you, Sacred Geometry will teach you how to bring this mystical knowledge into your daily practice.

The Moon boasts an unexpected variety of landscapes - including volcanic features, sinuous valleys and ghost craters - which are readily visible from Earth. This practical guide explains and demonstrates how you can capture impressive images of our nearest neighbour in space using a variety of different techniques. As the first guide to be dedicated to modern lunar imaging, this volume offers an in-depth and illustrated approach to common optics, the essentials of digital images, imaging devices, and image processing software. Even in light-polluted areas, the countless features and finest details of the Moon can be captured by following the instructions in this comprehensive and accessible guide. Covering equipment ranging from smartphones and DSLRs to specialist planetary cameras, whether you are a novice without a telescope, an amateur developing your skills in imaging, or an experienced astrophotographer, you will benefit from the hints, insights and expertise within.

In response to the new information gained about the Solar System from recent space probes and space telescopes, the experienced science author Dr. John Wilkinson presents the state-of-the art knowledge on the Sun, solar system planets and small solar system objects like comets and asteroids. He also describes space missions like the New Horizon's space probe that provided never seen before pictures of the Pluto system; the Dawn space probe, having just visited the asteroid Vesta, and the dwarf planet Ceres; and the Rosetta probe inorbit around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko that has sent extraordinary and most exciting pictures. Those and a number of other probes are also changing our understanding of the solar system and providing a wealth of new up close photos. This book will cover all these missions and discuss observed surface features of planets and moons like their compositions, geisers, aurorae, lightning phenomena etc.Presenting the fascinating aspects of solar system astronomy this book is a complete guide to the Solar System for amateur astronomers, students, science educators and interested members of the public.

As command module pilot of Apollo 17, the last crewed flight to the moon, Ron Evans combined precision flying and painstaking geological observation with moments of delight and enthusiasm. On his way to the launchpad, he literally jumped for joy in his spacesuit. Emerging from the command module to conduct his crucial spacewalk, he exclaimed, "Hot diggity dog!" and waved a greeting to his family. As a patriotic American in charge of command module America, Evans was nicknamed "Captain America" by his fellow crew members. Born in 1933 in St. Francis, Kansas, Evans distinguished himself academically and athletically in school, earned degrees in electrical engineering and aeronautical engineering, and became a naval aviator and a combat flight instructor. He was one of the few astronauts who served in combat during the Vietnam War, flying more than a hundred missions off the deck of the USS Ticonderoga, the same aircraft carrier that would recover him and his fellow astronauts after the splashdown of Apollo 17. Evans's astronaut career spans the Apollo missions and beyond. He served on the support crews for 1, 7, and 11 and on the Apollo 14 backup crew before being selected for Apollo 17 and flying on the final moon mission in 1972. He next trained with Soviet cosmonauts as backup command module pilot for the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission and carried out early work on the space shuttle program. Evans then left NASA to pursue a business career. He died suddenly in 1990 at the age of fifty-six.

Casual stargazers are familiar with many classical figures and asterisms composed of bright stars (e.g., Orion and the Plough), but this book reveals not just the constellations of today but those of yesteryear. The history of the human identification of constellations among the stars is explored through the stories of some influential celestial cartographers whose works determined whether new inventions survived. The history of how the modern set of 88 constellations was defined by the professional astronomy community is recounted, explaining how the constellations described in the book became permanently "extinct." Dr. Barentine addresses why some figures were tried and discarded, and also directs observers to how those figures can still be picked out on a clear night if one knows where to look. These lost constellations are described in great detail using historical references, enabling observers to rediscover them on their own surveys of the sky. Treatment of the obsolete constellations as extant features of the night sky adds a new dimension to stargazing that merges history with the accessibility and immediacy of the night sky.

Dreams of Other Worlds describes the unmanned space missions that have opened new windows on distant worlds. Spanning four decades of dramatic advances in astronomy and planetary science, this book tells the story of eleven iconic exploratory missions and how they have fundamentally transformed our scientific and cultural perspectives on the universe and our place in it. The journey begins with the Viking and Mars Exploration Rover missions to Mars, which paint a startling picture of a planet at the cusp of habitability. It then moves into the realm of the gas giants with the Voyager probes and Cassini's ongoing exploration of the moons of Saturn. The Stardust probe's dramatic round-trip encounter with a comet is brought vividly to life, as are the SOHO and Hipparcos missions to study the Sun and Milky Way. This stunningly illustrated book also explores how our view of the universe has been brought into sharp focus by NASA's great observatories--Spitzer, Chandra, and Hubble--and how the WMAP mission has provided rare glimpses of the dawn of creation. Dreams of Other Worlds reveals how these unmanned exploratory missions have redefined what it means to be the temporary tenants of a small planet in a vast cosmos.

Gateway to the Moon presents the definitive history of the origins, design, and construction of the lunar launch facilities at Kennedy Space Center, the terrestrial site of one of the greatest national adventures of the 20th century, humanity's first trip to the moon. It includes archival illustrations and diagrams of locations, personnel, and equipment, from aerial views of sandy, undeveloped Cape Canaveral to some of the first photos of the mobile launchers and crawler-transporters.

Filled with the sense of wonder and pride that the earliest U.S. space achievements inspired, the book focuses on launch complexes 39A and 39B, the gigantic assemblies from which the Apollo-Saturn vehicles departed for trips into space, and on the massive eight-acre Vertical Assembly Building (renamed the Vehicle Assembly Building) and the attached Launch Control Center -- some of the most awesome buildings ever constructed. It also analyzes the technological and governmental interactions necessary to ensure success of the launches.

Originally part of Moonport, a 1978 volume in the NASA History Series, the book is based on extensive interviews with wit participants in the space program and wide access to official documents, letters, and memoranda; in addition, the authors air criticisms directed at the Kennedy Space Center team and treat in detail mistakes in launch operations and conflicts within the program. Written for a general-interest audience, with jargon and acronyms translated into everyday language, the book offers a faithful account of technology in service to humanity.

In its first century and counting, NASA Langley Research Center [LaRC] has had a remarkable history that has stood out not only for the many outstanding achievements in flight and space exploration but the people who made it happen. "If there were a list of 100 people who contributed the most the progress in the world of flight, I believe Langley would provide the most names. Without question," observed astronaut, aeronautical engineer and the first man to walk on the Moon, Neil Alden Armstrong (1930 - 2012) on LaRC's nineteenth anniversary, "many of the giants of aero research spent their careers here, and many others, who learned their craft here, went on to lead other research efforts at other governments labs in the industry. Langley has been a powerhouse of creative thinking." With a centennial theme of "inventing the future," NASA LaRC is poised to enter its second century of ingenuity and invention with a wealth of pending and proposed research, and near-term prognostication may prove a bit easier.

The search for life in the Universe, once the domain of science fiction, is now a robust research program with a well-defined roadmap, from studying the extremes of life on Earth to exploring the possible niches for life in the Solar System and discovering thousands of planets far beyond it. In addition to constituting a major scientific endeavor, astrobiology is one of the most popular topics in astronomy, and is of growing interest to a broad community of thinkers from across the academic spectrum. In this volume, distinguished philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, historians and scientists discuss the big questions about how the discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether intelligent or microbial, would impact society. Their remarkable and often surprising findings challenge our foundational concepts of what the discovery of alien life may hold for humankind. Written in easily accessible language, this thought-provoking collection engages a wide audience of readers from all backgrounds.

The firsthand account of the trials and tribulations of engineering one of the most complex pieces of space technology, the Mars Rover Curiosity, by its chief engineer Rob Manning In the course of our enduring quest for knowledge about ourselves and our universe, we haven't found answers to one of our most fundamental questions: Does life exist anywhere else in the universe? Ten years and billions of dollars in the making, the Mars Rover Curiosity is poised to answer this all-important question. In Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer, Rob Manning, the project's chief engineer, tells of bringing the groundbreaking spacecraft to life. Manning and his team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tasked with designing a lander many times larger and more complex than any before, faced technical setbacks, fights over inadequate resources, and the challenges of leading an army of brilliant, passionate, and often frustrated experts. Manning's fascinating personal account--which includes information from his exclusive interviews with leading Curiosity scientists--is packed with tales of revolutionary feats of science, technology, and engineering. Readers experience firsthand the disappointment at encountering persistent technical problems, the agony of near defeat, the sense of victory at finding innovative solutions to these problems, the sheer terror of staking careers and reputations on a lander that couldn't be tested on Earth, and the rush of triumph at its successful touchdown on Mars on August 5, 2012. This is the story of persistence, dedication, and unrelenting curiosity.

'A delightful and utterly fascinating work of intellectual history.' Joshua Foer author of Moonwalking with Einstein

Despite a resurgence in popularity, horoscopes are generally considered to be pseudoscience today - but they were once a cutting-edge scientific tool. In this ingenious work of history, data scientist Alexander Boxer examines a treasure trove of esoteric classical sources to expose the deep imaginative framework by which - for millennia - we made sense of our fates. Astrology, he argues, was the ancient world's most ambitious applied mathematics problem, a grand data-analysis enterprise sustained by some of history's most brilliant minds, from Ptolemy to al-Kindi to Kepler.

A Scheme of Heaven explores the wonderful subtleties of astrological ideas. Telling the stories of their inventors and most influential exponents, Boxer puts them through their paces using modern data sets - finding that the methods of today's scientists are often uncomfortably close to those of astrology's ancient sages.

Thirty years ago when Sir Richard Branson called up Boeing and asked if they had a spare 747, few would have predicted the brash entrepreneur would so radically transform the placid business of air travel. But today, Branson flies airlines on six continents, employs hundreds of jets and, in 2014, was predicting that his spaceship company - Virgin Galactic - would soon open the space frontier to commercial astronauts, payload specialists, scientists and space tourists. With more than 600 seats sold at $250,000 each, what started off as a dream to send people just for the excitement to look back and marvel at Earth, was on the cusp of finally being turned into a business. Then, on October 21, 2014, tragedy struck. SpaceShipTwo was on its most ambitious test flight to date. Seconds after firing its engine, Virgin Galactic's spaceship was breaking through the sound barrier. In just the three seconds that it took for the vehicle to climb from Mach 0.94 to Mach 1.02, co-pilot Mike Alsbury made what many close to the event believe was a fatal mistake that led to his death and the disintegration of SpaceShipTwo. Miraculously, the pilot, Peter Siebold, survived the 16-km fall back to Earth. Soon after the event Branson vowed to continue his space tourism venture in spite of this. Already a second SpaceShipTwo is being built, and ticket-holders eagerly await the day when Virgin Galactic offers quick, routine and affordable access to the edge of space. This book explains the hurdles Virgin Galactic had and still has to overcome en route to developing suborbital space travel as a profitable economic entity, and describes the missions that will be flown on board SpaceShipTwo Mk II, including high-altitude science studies, astronomy, life sciences, and microgravity physics.

In this spellbinding account of an historic but troubled orbital mission, noted space historian Colin Burgess takes us back to an electrifying time in American history, when intrepid pioneers were launched atop notoriously unreliable rockets at the very dawn of human space exploration. A nation proudly and collectively came to a standstill on the day this mission flew; a day that will be forever enshrined in American spaceflight history. On the morning of February 20, 1962, following months of frustrating delays, a Marine Corps war hero and test pilot named John Glenn finally blazed a path into orbit aboard a compact capsule named Friendship 7. The book's tension-filled narrative faithfully unfolds through contemporary reports and the personal recollections of astronaut John Glenn, along with those closest to the Friendship 7 story, revealing previously unknown facts behind one of America's most ambitious and memorable pioneering space missions. Friendship 7. The book's tension-filled narrative faithfully unfolds through contemporary reports and the personal recollections of astronaut John Glenn, along with those closest to the Friendship 7 story, revealing previously unknown facts behind one of America's most ambitious and memorable pioneering space missions. Friendship 7 story, revealing previously unknown facts behind one of America's most ambitious and memorable pioneering space missions.

As with the author's recent books Extreme Explosions and Under a Crimson Sun, the complex topic of star clusters is broken down and made accessible with clear links to other areas of astronomy in a language which the non-specialist can easily read and enjoy. The full range of topics are addressed regarding how star clusters are formed. Why is it some are dense conglomerates of stars while others are looser associations? Are the young, brilliant clusters seen in neighboring galaxies such as the Large Magellanic Cloud, M33 or M82 analogous to the ancient globulars seen in the Milky Way? How will these clusters change as their stars wane and die? More interestingly, how does living in a dense star cluster affect the fates of the stars and any attendant planets that accompany them? Star clusters form many of the most dazzling objects in the astronomers' catalogs. Many amateur astronomers are interested in exploring how these objects are created and what it would be like to live among these objects. From the historical views of how star clusters came about to the most recent assumptions about how stars within these clusters evolve, different strands of science, from observation to theory, are woven together into a compelling investigation specifically targeted at amateur astronomers.

With current technology, a voyage to Mars and back will take three years. That's a lot of time for things to go wrong. But sooner or later a commercial enterprise will commit itself to sending humans to Mars. How will the astronauts survive? Some things to consider are: ith current technology, a voyage to Mars and back will take threeyears. That's a lot of time for things to go wrong. But sooner or later a commercial enterprise will commit itself to sending humans to Mars. How will the astronauts survive? Some things to consider are: * Who decides what medical resources are used for whom? Who decides what medical resources are used for whom?* What is the relative weight of mission success and the health of the crew? What is the relative weight of mission success and the health of thecrew? * Do we allow crewmembers to sacrifi ce their lives for the good of themission? Do we allow crewmembers to sacrifi ce their lives for the good of themission? * And what if a crewmember does perish? Do we store the body for return to Earth or give the member a burial in space? Questions like these, and hundreds of others, have been explored by science fi ction, but scant attention has been paid by those designing missions. Fortunately, the experience gained in polar exploration more than 100 years ago provides crews and mission planners with a framework to deal with contingencies and it is this that forms the core of this book. Why the parallels between polar and space exploration? Because polar exploration offers a better analogy for a Mars mission today than those invoked by the space community. Although astronauts are routinely compared to Lewis and Clark, Mars-bound astronauts will be closer in their roles to polar explorers. And, as much as space has been described as a New Frontier, Mars bears greater similarity to the polar regions, which is why so much can be learned from those who ventured there. And what if a crewmember does perish? Do we store the body forreturn to Earth or give the member a burial in space?Questions like these, and hundreds of others, have been explored by science fi ction, but scant attention has been paid by those designing missions. Fortunately, the experience gained in polar exploration more than 100 years ago provides crews and mission planners with a framework to deal with contingencies and it is this that forms the core of this book. Why the parallels between polar and space exploration? Because polar exploration offers a better analogy for a Mars mission today than those invoked by the space community. Although astronauts are routinely compared to Lewis and Clark, Mars-bound astronauts will be closer in their roles to polar explorers. And, as much as space has been described as a New Frontier, Mars bears greater similarity to the polar regions, which is why so much can be learned from those who ventured there.

"The Hatfield Lunar Atlas" has become an amateur lunar observer's bible since it was first published in 1968. A major update of the atlas was made in 1998, using the same wonderful photographs that Commander Henry Hatfield made with his purpose-built 12-inch (300 mm) telescope, but bringing the lunar nomenclature up to date and changing the units from Imperial to S.I. metric This edition is important since the fact is that modern telescope optics, digital imaging equipment and computer enhancement can easily surpass what was achieved with Henry Hatfield's 12-inch telescope and a film camera. This limits the usefulness of the original atlas to visual observing or imaging rather small amateur telescopes. The new, digitally re-mastered edition vastly improves the clarity and definition of the original photographs - significantly beyond the resolution limits of the photographic grains present in earlier atlas versions - while preserving the layout and style of the original publications. This has been achieved by merging computer-visualized Earth-based views of the lunar surface, derived from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data, with scanned copies of Commander Hatfield's photographic plates, using the author's own software. The results is a "The Hatfield Lunar Atlas" for 21st century amateur telescopes up to and beyond 12-inch aperture.

Written in a light and friendly style, this lavishly illustrated book introduces the Sun and its physics, and describes all aspects of the Sun's interaction with us on Earth. The second edition of this book updates the popular text by providing comprehensive accounts of the most recent discoveries made by five modern solar spacecraft during the past decade. It contains a number of images never before seen in print. Breakthrough observations with the underground Sudbury Neutrino Observatory are also included. The new edition further provides modern interpretations of ozone depletion and global warming.

This book is for the amateur astronomer who wants to know about the astrophysical nature of deep sky objects. The information is presented in a concise format and is equally valuable when used as background reading or, alternatively, at the telescope eyepiece. The past decades have seen an unprecedented increase in professional astronomers' understanding of astronomical objects. However, generally this information is contained in journal publications that most amateur astronomers either do not have access to or would find difficult to read. In this book, basic data on each object (e.g., magnitude, location, distance, age if known) is presented in a way that allows the reader to quickly access the information. This is followed by some remarks that capture the most fascinating astrophysical facts. Although there are thousands of deep sky objects observed by astronomers, only a small number of these are commonly observed by a wide audience. Thus, coverage here is limited to approximately 500 of the most commonly observed objects in the Northern Hemisphere and - an enhancement for the Second Edition - approximately 50 of those in the Southern Hemisphere. These are visible from the southern limits of the United States as well as from the southern continents. Another new feature of the Second Edition is the addition of amateur photographic images of all the Messier objects.

Rocket Science. Two words which are synonymous with complexity. Two words which for many people signify the zenith of human genius. A phrase which has entered the English lexicon to describe the toughest discipline in human endeavour. Author Alfred Zaehringer has a unique perspective on both the phrase and the discipline. In this book, his first about space in nearly forty years, Alfred Zaehringer uses his lifetime of experience to take the mystery out of the phrase he coined. Beginning with a short history of the birth of rocketry he moves into an explanation of the physics that makes it possible to use rockets to fly in space. Leaving no stone unturned he moves on to the politics and economics of space-flight before providing a detailed cross-section of mans different uses of the reaction rocket to fly into the heavens. Finally he looks at the proposals for future methods of space transportation and looks at the many promising new technologies which may offer cheaper access to space.