The International Astronautical Federation is the only professional society in the field of aerospace engineering and Sciences which brings together specialists of all countries interested in the exploration and peaceful exploitation of space. At its annual Congresses a large number of invited and/or carefully selected con tributed papers are presented which cover a wide variety of topics and are distributed over a number of sessions, each one being organized by two leading scientists who later chair the session itself. Each year the selection of specific topics to be dealt with. is dictated...

Space scientists and engineers belonging to the professional societies associated with the International Astronautical Federation gathered together in Vienna to hold the Federation's 23rd Congress. A selected number of papers and critical surveys that were presented and debated at this Congress and which span the widely diversified field of astonautics are collected in the present Proceedings, together with a number of summaries of Round Table Discussions andjor Forum Sessions. As its predecessors in the series, Astronautical Research 1972 constitutes an indispensable reference for several...