Springer Praxis Books – serie

Stung by the pioneering space successes of the Soviet Union - in particular, Gagarin being the first man in space, the United States gathered the best of its engineers and set itself the goal of reaching the Moon within a decade. In an expanding 2nd edition of How Apollo Flew to the Moon, David Woods tells the exciting story of how the resulting Apollo flights were conducted by following a virtual flight to the Moon and its exploration of the surface. From launch to splashdown, he hitches a ride in the incredible spaceships that took men to another world, exploring each step of the journey and detailing the enormous range of disciplines, techniques, and procedures the Apollo crews had to master. While describing the tremendous technological accomplishment involved, he adds the human dimension by calling on the testimony of the people who were there at the time. He provides a wealth of fascinating and accessible material: the role of the powerful Saturn V, the reasoning behind trajectories, the day-to-day concerns of human and spacecraft health between two worlds, the exploration of the lunar surface and the sheer daring involved in traveling to the Moon and the mid-twentieth century. Given the tremendous success of the original edition of How Apollo Flew to the Moon, the second edition will have a new chapter on surface activities, inspired by reader's comment on Amazon.com. There will also be additional detail in the existing chapters to incorporate all the feedback from the original edition, and will include larger illustrations.

This book describes the most complex machine ever sent to another planet: Curiosity. It is a one-ton robot with two brains, seventeen cameras, six wheels, nuclear power, and a laser beam on its head. No one human understands how all of its systems and instruments work. This essential reference to the Curiosity mission explains the engineering behind every system on the rover, from its rocket-powered jetpack to its radioisotope thermoelectric generator to its fiendishly complex sample handling system. Its lavishly illustrated text explains how all the instruments work -- its cameras, spectrometers, sample-cooking oven, and weather station -- and describes the instruments' abilities and limitations. It tells you how the systems have functioned on Mars, and how scientists and engineers have worked around problems developed on a faraway planet: holey wheels and broken focus lasers. And it explains the grueling mission operations schedule that keeps the rover working day in and day out.

When, in July 1969, the Americans decisively beat the Soviet Union in the race to put an astronaut on the moon, this event had profound historical, scientific and political implications. This book tells the story of the Soviet and Russian lunar programme, from its origins to the reconsideration of a lunar programme in the present-day federal Russian space programme. Following Sputnik, the first Soviet lunar flights achieved the key goals of hitting, circling and photographing the moon in 1959. The Soviet Union planned to achieve the biggest prize of them all –the first person to land on the moon – and built all the key spaceships required to do so, such as a lunar orbiter and lander. Brian Harvey describes the techniques devised by the USSR for lunar landing, from the LK lunar module to the LOK lunar orbiter and tested versions in Earth orbit. He asks whether these systems would have worked and, examining how well they were tested, concludes that they would have: the Soviet Union lost the moon race for political, not technical reasons. Designs for moon bases were even drawn up. In the end, the Soviet Union ran an impressive series of robotic missions from 1968 to 1976 to circle the moon, map the far side, conduct scientific observations from orbit, recover samples and rove over the surface. The scientific haul from these missions is surveyed: what was actually learned about the moon, its rocks and the lunar environment, that will be useful for the present plans by the United States to return to the moon and for other countries, such as India and China, to conduct their own lunar exploration.The book opens in Surgut, Siberia, in August 1976, with a largely forgotten event: the return to Earth after a three-day journey from the moon, under a single parachute, of the tiny Luna 24 cabin, with a core sample drilled deep into the Sea of Crises, a remarkable scientific and engineering achievement. It ends with an examination of projected missions, fromplans to explore the far side and set up lunar observatories to the Luna Glob explorer of the 1990s. There is also discussion of lunar tourism, using a modernized version of the Zond spacecraft which flew around the moon from1968 to 1970.

Learn about commercial spaceflight’s most successful startup in this fully updated book, which follows the extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement that have placed SpaceX at the forefront of the launch industry and positioned it as the most likely candidate for transporting humans to Mars.This second edition emphasizes SpaceX's much-hyped manned mission to the Red Planet. With a plethora of new material gathered from 2013 to the present, the text offers the most up-to-date portrait of the maverick band of scientists and engineers producing some of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the 21st century. Topics covered in this book include: all CRS flights, the challenges of developing retro-propulsion, and the pathway towards realizing the Falcon Heavy and BFR. In addition, the chapters describe SpaceX’s emphasis on simplicity, low-cost, and reliability, and the methods the company employs to reduce its costs while speeding up decision-making and delivery. Detailing the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, the book shows how SpaceX is able to offer a full spectrum of light, medium, and heavy lift launch capabilities to its customers and how it is able to deliver spacecraft into any inclination and altitude, from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit to planetary missions. This book is the perfect go-to guide on SpaceX for anybody working or interested in the commercial space arena.

Seafloor surveying with acoustic remote sensing has become a powerful tool for researchers and professionals seeking knowledge about the structure and behavior of the seafloor. In particular, sidescan sonar is proving to be the preeminent technique, but its data is often difficult to interpret due to the physics of acoustic remote sensing, and to the varied geological processes at play. This handbook not only presents all the fundamentals but also explains how to interpret sidescan sonar imagery and bathymetry. It fully explores the most recent advances, both in the technology and in the knowledge of marine structures, and provides deep insights for interpretation and decision-making. Broadly expanded and updated from the previous 1997 “Handbook of Seafloor Sonar Imagery”, this handbook is indispensable to oceanographers, resource exploiters, telecommunications engineers, and marine researchers of all kinds.

In Europe's Space Programme - to Ariane and Beyond, author Brian Harvey begins with the fledgling European rocket effort of the 1930s and the key pioneers of the period, examining the significance of the V-2 and the technological advances represented by its development. He shows how the Russians and Americans put their captured V-2s to work, but the European countries were slower to respond. Both Britain and France developed national space programmes in the 1950s and 1960s and the early attempts at European co-operation for launcher development - ELDO and ESRO - are described. The formation of the European Space Agency and the origins of the successful Ariane launcher programme are discussed and Europe's subsequent success in the world launcher market, its cutting-edge role in space applications and European manned spaceflight, are all described in detail.

This is the story of humankind’s quest over centuries to learn the true nature of the most dominant object in our Solar System: the Sun.Award-winning science writer Peter Bond describes in detail how our ideas about the Sun have changed over the millennia, starting with the simple observations of classical astronomy and continuing through telescopic observations to the age of nuclear physics. He shows how we discovered the Sun’s basic characteristics – its distance, size, temperature and composition – and then describes how, with evermore sophisticated instruments, we have learned about the Sun’s enormous energy output, its atmosphere and the explosive eruptions that blast clouds of magnetized gas and high-energy particles toward our world.Most of this book focuses on the Space Age, when suborbital rockets and satellites have probed every aspect of our nearby star. Each of these missions is described in detail, with summaries of their objectives, spacecraft designs, scientific payloads and results. The book also looks forward, describing forthcoming missions that will shed new light on remaining solar mysteries, notably the source of the energy that heats the outer corona to millions of degrees.Richly illustrated with mission photos, design diagrams, and infocharts, this book is a fascinating read for anybody interested in the Sun and our attempts to unravel its secrets.

Paolo Ulivi and David Harland provide in Robotic Exploration of the Solar System a detailed history of unmanned missions of exploration of our Solar System. The subject is treated from an engineering and scientific standpoint. Technical descriptions of the spacecraft, of their mission designs and of instrumentations are provided. Scientific results are discussed in considerable depth, together with details of mission management. The project will deliver four volumes totaling over 2,000 pages that will provide comprehensive coverage of the topic with thousands of references to the professional literature that should make it the 'first port of call' for people seeking information on the topic. The books will cover missions from the 1950s until the present day, and some of the latest missions and their results will appear in a popular science book for the first time.

When the mighty Rocketdyne F-1 engine was conceived in the late 1950s for the U.S. Air Force, it had no defined mission and there was no launch vehicle it could power. It was a bold concept to push the technological envelope of rocket propulsion in order to put massive payloads into Earth orbit. Few realized at the time that the F-1 would one day propel American astronauts to the Moon. In The Saturn V F-1 Engine, Anthony Young tells the amazing story of unbridled vision, bold engineering, explosive failures during testing, unrelenting persistence to find solutions, and ultimate success in launching the Saturn V with a 100 percent success rate. The bookcontains personal interviews with many Rocketdyne and NASA personnel involved in the engine’s design, development, testing and production;is lavishly illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs, many never previously publishedis the first complete history of the most powerful rocket engine ever built.The F-1 engine remains the high point in U.S. liquid rocket propulsion – it represents a period in American history when nothing was impossible.

Lunar Outpost provides a detailed account of the various technologies, mission architectures, medical requirements and training needed to return humans to the Moon within the next decade. It focuses on the means by which a lunar outpost will be constructed and also addresses major topics such as the cost of the enterprise and the roles played by private companies and individual countries. The return of humans to the surface of the Moon will be critical to the exploration of the solar system. The various missions are not only in pursuit of scientific knowledge, but also looking to extend human civilization, economic expansion, and public engagement beyond Earth. As well as NASA, China’s Project 921, Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency, Russia, and the European Space Agency are all planning manned missions to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars. The Ares-I and Ares-V are the biggest rockets since the Saturn V and there is much state-of-the-art technology incorporated into the design of Orion, the spacecraft that will carry a crew of four astronauts to the Moon. Lunar Outpost also describes the human factors, communications, exploration activities, and life support constraints of the missions.

Sundials, which decorate church walls, public plazas, and elegant gardens, are first and foremost astronomical instruments. Before understanding how sundials work, one must first understand the apparent motion of the Sun in the sky. In this book, Denis Savoie presents the basics of astronomy required to understand sundials and describes how to design and build your own classical sundial. Written for all levels of science readers, the author shows the calculations involved in the sundial’s construction and also gives a comprehensive history of time measurement.The practical and observational aspects of sundials will enable readers to create custom-made sundial of their own, adding whatever special features they wish to include. Most of these designs have been tested by people with no previous knowledge of astronomy. To aid the reader, the book is full of clear and instructive illustrations and diagrams.

This book will be a key trailblazer in a new and upcoming field. The author’s predictive approach relies on simple and intuitive probability formulations that will appeal to readers with a modest knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, and statistics. Wells’ carefully erected theory stands on a sure footing and thus should serve as the basis of many rational predictions of survival in the face of not only natural disasters such as hits by asteroids or comets, but perhaps more surprisingly from man-made hazards arising from genetic engineering or robotics.Any formula for predicting human survival will invite controversy. Dr Wells counters anticipated criticism with a thorough approach in which four lines of reasoning are used to arrive at the same survival formula. One uses empirical survival statistics for business firms and stage shows. Another is based on uncertainty of risk rates. The third, more abstract, invokes Laplace’s principle of insufficient reason and involves an observer’s random arrival in the lifetime of the entity (the human race) in question. The fourth uses Bayesian theory.The author carefully explains and gives examples of the conditions under which his principle is valid and provides evidence that can counteract the arguments of critics who would reject it entirely. His deflection of possible criticisms results from two major premises: selecting the proper random variable and “reference class” to make predictions, and the recognition that if one does not know the law that governs a process, then the best prediction that can be made is his own formula.

On February 1st 2003, one of the worst and most public disasters ever witnessed in the human space programme unfolded with horrifying suddenness in the skies above north central Texas. The Space Shuttle Columbia – the world’s first truly reusable manned spacecraft – was lost during her return to Earth, along with a crew of seven. It was an event that, after the loss of Space Shuttle Challenger during a launch 17 years before, the world had hoped it would never see again. This book details each of Columbia’s 28 missions in turn, as told by scientists and researchers who developed and supported her many payloads, by the engineers who worked on her and by the astronauts who flew her. In doing so, it is intended to provide a fitting tribute to this most remarkable flying machine and those who perished on her last mission.

In the 1960s and 1970s deep space missions were dispatched in pairs in case one was lost in launch or failed during its journey. Following the triumphs of the Viking landings on Mars in 1976 and both Voyagers spacecraft successfully surveying the outer giant planets of the Solar System, it was decided by NASA to cut costs and send out just a single probe.Although Magellan successfully mapped Venus by radar, it suffered from problems during the flight. Then came the loss of Mars Observer, whose engine exploded as it was preparing to enter Mars’ orbit because it was using technology designed for Earth’s satellites and the engine was not suited to spending several months in space. Later came the high-profile losses of Mars Climate Observer and Mars Polar Lander - a consequence of the faster, better, cheaper philosophy introduced by Dan Goldin in 1993. Even the highly successful Galileo mission suffered a major setback when its high-gain antenna (also based on satellite mission suffered a major setback when its high-gain antenna (also based on satellite communication technology) failed to deploy fully, greatly diminishing the craft’s radio transmission capabilities, forcing the ground crew to re-programme the on-board computer to enable it to fulfil its mission and provide stunning images of Jupiter and its moons.In Space Systems Failures, David Harland (here working with co-author Ralph Lorenz) describes the many quite fascinating tales of woe involving failures of rockets, satellites and deep space missions in his inimitable style, providing a unique insight into the trials and tribulations of exploration at the high frontier.

With the aid of unique photographs, first-hand interviews and historical resources, Rex Hall, Dave Shayler and Bert Vis explain, for the very first time, how Russian citizens have been selected and trained to fly in space, and how these procedures have changed during the past 40 years. The authors also describe the evolution of the often overlooked ground support infrastructure and how the role of cosmonauts has changed from the very earliest days of the Gagarin era, through the demise of the Soviet Union, to the era of international co-operation and collaboration on programmes such as the International Space Station.The book will provide much important background information and insight to the operational Soviet/Russian manned space programme, already covered in other Springer-Praxis titles, but revealing information and facts not covered elsewhere, and providing a unique reference source for all those who wish to understand the changing role of Russian cosmonauts in today’s global space programme.

Mounting pressure in the early 1960s from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to study ways of expanding the role of astronauts to conduct science on future space missions led to NASA’s conclusion that flying scientifically trained crewmembers would generate greater returns from each mission. NASA and industry studies continued investigating possibilities that could lead to the eventual creation of the first space stations using surplus Apollo hardware, through the Apollo Applications Programme (AAP). There was also a growing interest within the military to create their own manned space station programme, conducting on-orbit experiments and research with strategic advantages for national security. In October 1964 the Soviets launched Voskhod 1 whose 3-man crew were identified as the first ‘scientific passengers’ in space. A few days later NASA and the NAS had completed joint studies into the possibility of using scientists in the manned space programme, and invited scientists to apply for astronaut training. In selecting the first group of scientist-astronauts, NASA had one firm requirement; any person accepted into the programme would have to qualify as a military jet pilot. While the second group of scientists were completing their academic, survival and flight training programme, the remaining members of the first scientist-astronaut group were involved in supporting the developing Apollo Applications programme and the Apollo lunar programme.

This successor edition picks up the story where the first edition left off in 1997, and runs through to Mir’s de-orbiting in March 2001, providing the definitive account of the Mir Space Station. The book reviews the origins of the Soviet space station programme, in particular the highly successful Salyuts 6 and 7, describes Mir’s structure, environment, power supply and maneuvering systems, and provides a comprehensive account of how it was assembled and how it operated in orbit.Tells how the Soviet Union's experience with a succession of Salyut space stations led to the development of Mir, which was assembled in space, piece by piece, between 1982 and 1996 and became an international research laboratory whose technology went on to form the 'core modules' of the International Space Station.

Mars has long been believed to have been cold, dead and dry for aeons, but there is now striking new proof that not only was Mars a relatively warm and wet place in geologically recent times, but that even today there are vast reserves of water frozen beneath the planet’s surface. As well as casting fascinating new insights into Mars’ past, this discovery is also forcing a complete rethink about the mechanisms of global planetary change and the possibility that there is microbial life on Mars.David Harland considers the issue of life on Mars in parallel with the origin of life on Earth. At the time the Viking instruments were designed, it was thought that all terrestrial life ultimately derived its energy from sunlight, and that the earliest form of life was the cyanobacteria with chlorophyll for photosynthesis. It was assumed the same would be the case on Mars and that microbial life would be on or near the surface that the Vikings had sampled.In parallel with these NASA projects, the European Space Agency developed the Mars Express remote-sensing orbiter, which has detected traces of methane that may have been released by microbes. If microbial life is found on Mars, will it be based on DNA? Will this indicate that life developed independently? Or that it has characteristics in common with the most ancient forms of terrestrial life? If life is found on two planets in the same planetary system, this would favour the panspermia hypothesis. And if martian life is radically different, then in light of the discovery of planetary systems around other stars, this would, as remarked by Philip Morrison of MIT, "transform life from the status of a miracle to that of a statistic". These are all questions that the exploration of Mars for life are aimed to answer.

Cassini At Saturn – Huygens Results brings the story of the Cassini-Huygens mission and their joint exploration of the Saturnian system right up to date. Cassini entered orbit around Saturn June 2004 so this update includes 8 months of scientific data available for review, including the most spectacular images of Saturn, its rings and satellites ever obtained by a space mission. As the Cassini spacecraft approached its destination in spring 2004, the quality of the images already being returned by the spacecraft clearly demonstrated the spectacular nature of the close-range views that will be obtained. The book contains a 16-page colour section, comprising a carefully chosen selection of the most stunning images to be released during the spacecraft’s initial period of operation.The Huygens craft, released by Cassini, parachuted through the clouds of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, in January 2005. David Harland tells the exciting story of the this craft’s journey to the surface of one of the most enigmatic bodies on the Solar System, the only moon to have a dense atmosphere and possibly lakes of liquid gas at -190ºC on its surface. Titan is considered to be an early Earth in deep freeze, possibly with the building blocks of life in its atmosphere. There will undoubtedly be enormous interest in the first results and images of Titan’s surface, and this book is the first incisive summary of this groundbreaking material.

The impact of Einstein’s relativity is perhaps most dramatic in astronomy, radically altering our interpretation of the observations of the stars and galaxies. Astronomers now encounter challenging phenomena that Einstein never lived to see, in which the bizarre effects of relativity played out on a cosmic scale. This accessible overview explains to general readers the many applications of relativity that have not been shown in earlier popular-level books. Using no mathematics beyond e=mc2, it explains how deeply relativistic ways of viewing the Universe have informed our interpretations of it, and how many of the amazing discoveries of these decades have made sense only as part of Einstein's universe. Some principal observers provide fresh commentary on their discoveries, accompanied by illustrations, newly produced from data in the archives of such observatories as Hubble and Chandra.

The dark matter problem is one of the most fundamental and profoundly difficult to solve problems in the history of science. Not knowing what makes up most of the known universe goes to the heart of our understanding of the Universe and our place in it. In Search of Dark Matter is the story of the emergence of the dark matter problem, from the initial erroneous ‘discovery’ of dark matter by Jan Oort to contemporary explanations for the nature of dark matter and its role in the origin and evolution of the Universe.Written for the educated non-scientist and scientist alike, it spans a variety of scientific disciplines, from observational astronomy to particle physics. Concepts that the reader will encounter along the way are at the cutting edge of scientific research. However the themes are explained in such a way that no prior understanding of science beyond a high school education is necessary.

On 25 May 1961, John F Kennedy announced the goal of landing an American man on the Moon by the end of the decade. This challenge forced NASA to review the planned lunar landing of a three-man spaceship named Apollo in the mid-1970s. In 1962, it was decided that a specialized vehicle would accompany the main spacecraft, to make the lunar landing while the mothership remained in lunar orbit. To send these vehicles to the Moon would require the development of an enormous rocket. Development was protracted, but in December 1968 Apollo 8 was launched on a pioneering mission to perform an initial reconnaissance in lunar orbit. When Apollo 17 lifted off from the Moon in December 1972, the program was concluded. Now, at long last, there is a real prospect of a resumption of human exploration of the Moon.This book provides an overview of the origins of the Apollo program and descriptions of the ground facilities, launch vehicles and spacecraft that will serve as an invaluable single-volume sourcebook for space enthusiasts, space historians, journalists, and programme-makers on radio and TV. It supplements tha other books that have focused on the politics and management of the Apollo program, the astronauts, and their training and exploits.

The Wheels of Apollo and the Quest for Mars fills a need for a complete history of the Lunar Roving Vehicle used on Apollo 15, 16 and 17, drawing on many photographs never before published. It also tells the story of the robotic rovers used on Mars, and concludes with a description of the new designs of rovers planned for The New Vision for Exploration now underway at NASA. The book provides extensive quotes from the astronauts who drove the LRV on the Moon from interviews conducted especially for the book. It also details new material from interviews of engineers and managers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory covering the robotic rovers, Sojourner, Sprit and Opportunity. The Foreword is written by David R. Scott, Commander of Apollo 15. Chapter 1: From Concept to Reality; Chapter 2: Lunar Roving Vehicle Subsystems; Chapter 3: Training for the Moon; Chapter 4: To the Hadley Plains; Chapter 4: Mysterious and Unknown Descartes; Chapter 5: Destiny at Taurus-Littrow; Chapter Six: The Quest for Mars-Chapter Seven: The New Vision of Exploration.

Philip Baker charts the history of manned space stations from the very beginning in a logical, chronological order. He tells the story of the two major space powers starting out on their very separate programs, but slowly coming together through ASTP, Shuttle-Mir, and the ISS, and includes programs that rarely get mentioned - the US Manned Orbiting Laboratory, and the Soviet Almaz station, both military backed projects.The Mir space station was one of the greatest human achievements in modern history, and a thorough telling of its story is essential to this book. During its life it grew and evolved into a truly international outpost, with visitors from all over the world taking advantage of the only permanent space station in orbit at that time.This book will be the only one of its kind to tell the whole story of the manned space stations from both nations, from the very beginning, to the current ISS story, and to the possibilities beyond.Each chapter of this book will contain interviews with many of the primary participants, including the astronauts, cosmonauts, designers, mission controllers, doctors and managers most directly involved in the flights. The author paints a vivid picture of two competing nations slowly coming together to form an alliance that is shaky and uncertain to begin with, but grows from fierce competition into solid collaboration.

I was delighted to be invited by my colleagues Alessandra Celletti and Ettore Perozzi to provide a foreword to their book, Celestial Mechanics: The Waltz of the Planets. Having known them for many years and long admired their work in the subject so many of us love and are fascinated by, 1 read with great attention and pleasure the text when it arrived. It is a formidable task they have set themselves, to provide a book that describes attempts by successive generations of astronomers from the dawn of history five millennia ago to observe, record and understand the phenomena of the heavens, particularly the intricate and perplexing behaviour of the planets. Sun and Moon. As naked eye astronomy became aided by the telescope and the photographic plate, and since the middle of the twentieth century, by instruments launched on spacecraft into circum- Earth orbit or to the Moon and planets and beyond, the discovery of new satellites, scores of them, and ring systems displaying new and initially perplexing behaviour also demanded explanations for that behaviour. It is also the inspiring story of science itself with special reference to how lonely individuals, impelled by curiosity and dedicated to seeking the truth, and nothing but the truth, about the fascinating phenomena of nature, ultimately became accepted as scientists, those players in the most successful endeavour ever engaged in by the human race.

In Searching for Water in the Solar System, Thérèse Encrenaz takes the reader on a journey through the Universe in search of water. She begins by introducing the most well-known of molecule H2O, its physical and chemical characteristics and its cosmic Formation and abundance. She examines the methods by which the presence of water is detected, both within the solar system and beyond. One by one she visits a diversity of locations in the cosmos, from the nearest planets to the furthest galaxies, where water has been discovered. In the formation of the solar system, she explains how the water molecule played a major part, with the so-called ‘ice frontier’ determining the natures of the terrestrial and giant planets.The book explores the presence of water in the various bodies of the Solar System: in the giant planets, with their rings and systems of satellites, in comets, asteroids and in the terrestrial planets. By tracing the history of water in the atmospheres of Mars, Venus and the Earth, the author explains how small differences in temperatures, causing water to exist in different states on different planets – vapour on Venus, liquid on Earth and solid ice on Mars – have led to a great divergence in the evolutions of the three planets. The story of water on Mars, an aspect of great topical interest, offers an insight into the possibility (still only a theory) that there was once life on that planet. The book concludes by looking at the important role played by water in studies of habitable exoplanets.

Praxis Log of Manned Spaceflight 1961-2006 will open with a section entitled: Quest for Space, which will provide an explanation of the methods employed to get in and out of orbit and brief overviews of the different international space programmes. It will be a complete chronological log of all attempted orbital manned spaceflights, including the X-15 "astroflights" of the 1960s that only achieved an altitude of c. 50 miles and the two 1961 Mercury and Redstone missions which were non-orbital. There will be an image depicting each manned spaceflight, and data boxes containing brief biographies of all the space travellers and basic flight data. The main text will be a narrative of each mission, its highlights and accomplishments, including those strange facts and humorous stories that are connected to every mission.By targeting publication in September 2006, the return to flight of the Shuttle, two more Soyuz TMA launches and, quite possibly, a second Chinese manned mission. The resulting book will be a handy reference to all manned spaceflights, the names astronauts and cosmonauts who flew on each mission, and their roles and accomplishments. Recent announcements of a return to the Moon and eventual manned flights to Mars, as new hardware and procedures are developed to support these long-range programs, emphasizes the case for future updates of this book.

On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. One month later, President John F. Kennedy challenged the American nation to land a man on the Moon before the decade was out. On 16 July 1969, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin set off in Apollo 11 to attempt this audacious mission, and succeeded magnificently. This book tells the story of Apollo 11, starting with crew selection and training, the choice of the landing site, and the assembly of the space vehicle, then a detailed account of the mission, featuring the lunar landing and moonwalk, and a review of how our knowledge of the Moon's history was revolutionised as a result. The story is enlivened by dialogue between the astronauts in space and the flight controllers in Mission Control.

Miner and Wessen have teamed together again, along with noted planetary ring scientist, Dr Jeffrey Cuzzi, to produce the most comprehensive and up-to date book on the topic of planetary rings systems yet written. The book is written in a style and at a language level easily accessible to the interested non-expert. The authors cover the scientific significance of ring studies, the history of their discovery and characterization, the observations of Pioneer 10 at Jupiter, Pioneer 11 and Voyager 1 at Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 at all four giant planets of the solar system, and Galileo at Jupiter. The discussion also includes subsequent scientific analyses of the observations, along with the accompanying theoretical studies, including various theories for the origins of planetary ring systems. Finally, the four ring systems are both compared and contrasted in a chapter on comparative planetology.Early additional findings from the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn (due to arrive in July 2004) will also be included. The first series of ring orbits by Cassini occur between May and October 2005 and this book will provide the first summary of these detailed observations, the first since the flyby of Voyager 2 in 1981. Images of Saturn, as the Cassini spacecraft approached the planet in spring 2004, revealed a wealth of detail in the ring system, a foretaste of the excitement to come.Each chapter includes extensive notes, references, figures and tables. A bibliography is also included at the end of each chapter, for those who want to peruse the existing literature. Both a glossary and a topical index will make the book a useful reference tool for planetary scientists as well as for the targeted audience of non-experts.