The Twenty-First Century in Space

ISBN-13: 9781493913060 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 519 str.

Ben Evans

Opis

April 12, 2011 was the 50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering journey into space. To commemorate this momentous achievement, Springer-Praxis has produced a mini-series of books that reveals how humanity's knowledge of flying, working and living in space has grown in the last half century. The fifth and final volume in the miniseries focuses on 'The Twenty-First Century, ' in which the construction of the International Space Station, from the launch of its first element (the Russian Zarya control module) in 1998 to the end of the Shuttle-focused construction effort (with the Tranquility Node-3, the cupola and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer) in 2011. All the expeditions up to the 2011 anniversary of Gagarin are explored in detail, the make-up of crews, the shift from three-crew to two-crew, the effect of the STS-107 tragedy on the project and the eventual push to a six-person permanent occupancy.The final Hubble repair mission, STS-125, provides an opportunity not just to discuss the flight itself, but also to explore the mechanics and principles behind having 'rescue missions' on standby and will spur a discussion of the changing focus of Shuttle operations in the wake of Columbia. The remarkable arrival of the Chinese Shenzhou on the scene and its whirlwind of achievements in such a short space of time is explored, as its potential for contributions in the future. Similarly, the arrival of the first 'space tourists' with Dennis Tito in 2001 is considered and the future of such projects are discussed, including Virgin Galactic. The future in space is considered: ongoing Russian projects, Orion, the return to the Moon and on to Mars and this book closes with a snapshot of where humanity may be on the hundredth anniversary of Gagarin

Recenzje

"Evans ... provides a full biographical background, often with a number of personal anecdotes, on all major (and many minor) participants in the history. ... It will serve as a standard reference work for students and the aerospace community. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals/practitioners." (A. M. Strauss, Choice, Vol. 52 (11), July, 2015)

Spis treści

Preface.- Acknowledgments.- Introduction.- Chapter 1: A Steadily Brightening Star.- Chapter 2: Columbia and After.- Chapter 3: An International Workplace.- Chapter 4: A Tourist’s Haven.- Chapter 5: The Dragon Awakens.- Chapter 6: Epilogue – The Next Fifty Years.- Bibliography.- Index.

O autorze

Ben Evans is an accomplished and experienced space writer ideally qualified to chronicle the epic story of human space exploration. This is the final entry in his "A History of Human Space Exploration" sub-series with Springer Praxis, following after Escaping the Bonds of Earth: The Fifties and Sixties (2009), Foothold in the Heavens: The Seventies (2010), At Home in Space: The Late Seventies into the Eighties (2010), Tragedy and Triumph: The Eighties and Early Nineties (2012), and Partnership in Space: The Mid to Late Nineties (2014). He has also published numerous space and astronomy related articles in such journals as Spaceflight, Countdown and Astronomy Now.

Blurb

This final entry in the History of Human Space Exploration mini-series by Ben Evans continues with an in-depth look at the latter part of the 20th century and the start of the new millennium. Picking up where Partnership in Space left off, the story commemorating the evolution of manned space exploration unfolds in further detail. More than fifty years after Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering journey into space, Evans extends his overview of how that momentous voyage continued through the decades which followed.

The Twenty-first Century in Space, the sixth book in the series, explores how the fledgling partnership between the United States and Russia in the 1990s gradually bore fruit and laid the groundwork for today’s International Space Station. The narrative follows the convergence of the Shuttle and Mir programs, together with standalone missions, including servicing the Hubble Space Telescope, many of whose technical and human lessons enabled the first efforts to build the ISS in orbit. The book also looks to the future of developments in the 21st century.