50 Years of Solar System Exploration

50 Years of Solar System Exploration PDF Author: Linda Billings
Publisher: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of Communications NASA History Division
ISBN: 9781626830530
Category : Astronautics
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
"To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first successful planetary mission, Mariner 2 sent to Venus in 1962, the NASA History Program Office, the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum, NASA's Science Mission Directorate, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory organized a symposium. "Solar System Exploration @ 50" was held in Washington, D.C., on 25-26 October 2012. The purpose of this symposium was to consider, over the more than 50-year history of the Space Age, what we have learned about the other bodies of the solar system and the processes by which we have learned it. Symposium organizers asked authors to address broad topics relating to the history of solar system exploration such as various flight projects, the development of space science disciplines, the relationship between robotic exploration and human spaceflight, the development of instruments and methodologies for scientific exploration, as well as the development of theories about planetary science, solar system origins and implications for other worlds. The papers in this volume provide a richly textured picture of important developments - and some colorful characters - in a half century of solar system exploration. A comprehensive history of the first 50 years of solar system exploration would fill many volumes. What readers will find in this volume is a collection of interesting stories about money, politics, human resources, commitment, competition and cooperation, and the "faster, better, cheaper" era of solar system exploration"--

50 Years of Solar System Exploration

50 Years of Solar System Exploration PDF Author: Linda Billings
Publisher: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of Communications NASA History Division
ISBN: 9781626830530
Category : Astronautics
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book Here

Book Description
"To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first successful planetary mission, Mariner 2 sent to Venus in 1962, the NASA History Program Office, the Division of Space History at the National Air and Space Museum, NASA's Science Mission Directorate, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory organized a symposium. "Solar System Exploration @ 50" was held in Washington, D.C., on 25-26 October 2012. The purpose of this symposium was to consider, over the more than 50-year history of the Space Age, what we have learned about the other bodies of the solar system and the processes by which we have learned it. Symposium organizers asked authors to address broad topics relating to the history of solar system exploration such as various flight projects, the development of space science disciplines, the relationship between robotic exploration and human spaceflight, the development of instruments and methodologies for scientific exploration, as well as the development of theories about planetary science, solar system origins and implications for other worlds. The papers in this volume provide a richly textured picture of important developments - and some colorful characters - in a half century of solar system exploration. A comprehensive history of the first 50 years of solar system exploration would fill many volumes. What readers will find in this volume is a collection of interesting stories about money, politics, human resources, commitment, competition and cooperation, and the "faster, better, cheaper" era of solar system exploration"--

NASA's First 50 Years Historical Perspectives

NASA's First 50 Years Historical Perspectives PDF Author: Steven J. Dick
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781470024758
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 776

Get Book Here

Book Description
Fifty years after the founding of NASA, from 28 to 29 October 2008, the NASA History Division convened a conference whose purpose was a scholarly analysis of NASA's first 50 years. Over two days at NASA Headquarters, historians and policy analysts discussed NASA's role in aeronautics, human spaceflight, exploration, space science, life science, and Earth science, as well as crosscutting themes ranging from space access to international relations in space and NASA's interaction with the public. The speakers were asked to keep in mind the following questions: What are the lessons learned from the first 50 years? What is NASA's role in American culture and in the history of exploration and discovery? What if there had never been a NASA? Based on the past, does NASA have a future? The results of those papers, elaborated and fully referenced, are found in this 50th anniversary volume. The reader will find here, instantiated in the complex institution that is NASA, echoes of perennial themes elaborated in an earlier volume, Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight. The conference culminated a year of celebrations, beginning with an October 2007 conference celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Space Age and including a lecture series, future forums, publications, a large presence at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and numerous activities at NASA's 10 Centers and venues around the country. It took place as the Apollo 40th anniversaries began, ironically still the most famous of NASA's achievements, even in the era of the Space Shuttle, International Space Station (ISS), and spacecraft like the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) and the Hubble Space Telescope. And it took place as NASA found itself at a major crossroads, for the first time in three decades transitioning, under Administrator Michael Griffin, from the Space Shuttle to a new Ares launch vehicle and Orion crew vehicle capable of returning humans to the Moon and proceeding to Mars in a program known as Constellation. The Space Shuttle, NASA's launch system since 1981, was scheduled to wind down in 2010, freeing up funds for the new Ares launch vehicle. But the latter, even if it moved forward at all deliberate speed, would not be ready until 2015, leaving the unsettling possibility that for at least five years the United States would be forced to use the Russian Soyuz launch vehicle and spacecraft as the sole access to the ISS in which the United States was the major partner. The presidential elections a week after the conference presaged an imminent presidential transition, from the Republican administration of George W. Bush to (as it turned out) the Democratic presidency of Barack Obama, with all the uncertainties that such transitions imply for government programs. The uncertainties for NASA were even greater, as Michael Griffin departed with the outgoing administration and as the world found itself in an unprecedented global economic downturn, with the benefits of national space programs questioned more than ever before. There was no doubt that 50 years of the Space Age had altered humanity in numerous ways ranging from applications satellites to philosophical world views. Throughout its 50 years, NASA has been fortunate to have a strong sense of history and a robust, independent, and objective history program to document its achievements and analyze its activities. Among its flagship publications are Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, of which seven of eight projected volumes were completed at the time of the 50th anniversary. The reader can do no better than to turn to these volumes for an introduction to NASA history as seen through its primary documents. The list of NASA publications at the end of this volume is also a testimony to the tremendous amount of historical research that the NASA History Division has sponsored over the last 50 years, of which this is the latest volume.

NASA 50th Anniversary Proceedings: NASA's First 50 Years: Historical Perspectives

NASA 50th Anniversary Proceedings: NASA's First 50 Years: Historical Perspectives PDF Author: Steven J. Dick
Publisher: U. S. National Aeronautics & Space Administration
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 784

Get Book Here

Book Description
On 29 July 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which became operational on 1 October of that year. Over the next 50 years, NASA achieved a set of spectacular feats, ranging from advancing the well-established field of aeronautics to pioneering the new fields of Earth and space science and human spaceflight. In the midst of the geopolitical context of the Cold War, 12 Americans walked on the Moon, arriving in peace “for all mankind.” Humans saw their home planet from a new perspective, with unforgettable Apollo images of Earthrise and the “Blue Marble,” as well as the “pale blue dot” from the edge of the solar system. A flotilla of spacecraft has studied Earth, while other spacecraft have probed the depths of the solar system and the universe beyond. In the 1980s, the evolution of aeronautics gave us the first winged human spacecraft, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station stands as a symbol of human cooperation in space as well as a possible way station to the stars. With the Apollo fire and two Space Shuttle accidents, NASA has also seen the depths of tragedy. In this volume, a wide array of scholars turn a critical eye toward NASA’s first 50 years, probing an institution widely seen as the premier agency for exploration in the world, carrying on a long tradition of exploration by the United States and the human species in general. Fifty years after its founding, NASA finds itself at a crossroads that historical perspectives can only help to illuminate.

Remembering the Space Age

Remembering the Space Age PDF Author: Steven Dick
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781470031800
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume is nearly 500 pages and topics covered include: Gigantic Follies? Human Exploration and the Space Age in Long-term Historical Perspective; National Aspirations on a Global Stage: Fifty Years of Spaceflight; Building Space Capability through European Regional Collaboration; Imagining an Aerospace Agency in the Atomic Age; Creating a Memory of the German Rocket Program for the Cold War; Operation Paperclip in Huntsville, Alabama; The Great Leap Upward: China's Human Spaceflight Program and Chinese National Identity; The "Right" Stuff: The Reagan Revolution and the U.S. Space Program; Great (Unfulfilled) Expectations: To Boldly Go Where No Social Scientist and Historian Have Gone Before; Far Out: The Space Age in American Culture; A Second Nature Rising: Spaceflight in an Era of Representation; Creating Memories: Myth, Identity, and Culture in the Russian Space Age; The Music of Memory and Forgetting: Global Echoes of Sputnik 2; From the Cradle to the Grave: Cosmonaut Nostalgia in Soviet and Post-Soviet Film; Discovering the Iconic in Space Exploration Photography; Robert A. Heinlein's Influence on Spaceflight; American Spaceflight History's Master Narrative and the Meaning of Memory; A Melancholic Space Age Anniversary; Has Space Development Made a Difference?; Has There Been a Space Age?; and Cultural Functions of Space Exploration. NASA-SP-2008-4703

Space Odyssey

Space Odyssey PDF Author: Serge Brunier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521813565
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 197

Get Book Here

Book Description
Highly illustrated account of the greatest moments of space exploration.

Forging the Future of Space Science

Forging the Future of Space Science PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309215897
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

Get Book Here

Book Description
From September 2007 to June 2008 the Space Studies Board conducted an international public seminar series, with each monthly talk highlighting a different topic in space and Earth science. The principal lectures from the series are compiled in Forging the Future of Space Science. The topics of these events covered the full spectrum of space and Earth science research, from global climate change, to the cosmic origins of life, to the exploration of the Moon and Mars, to the scientific research required to support human spaceflight. The prevailing messages throughout the seminar series as demonstrated by the lectures in this book are how much we have accomplished over the past 50 years, how profound are our discoveries, how much contributions from the space program affect our daily lives, and yet how much remains to be done. The age of discovery in space and Earth science is just beginning. Opportunities abound that will forever alter our destiny.

NASA in the World

NASA in the World PDF Author: John Krige
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137340932
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 467

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since its inception, NASA has participated in over 4,000 international projects, yet historians have almost entirely neglected this remarkable aspect of the agency's work. This groundbreaking work is the first to trace NASA's history in a truly international context, drawing on unprecedented access to agency archives and personnel.

America in Space

America in Space PDF Author: Steven Dick
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9780810993730
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The story of America's space age is told with more than 400 carefully selected images, beginning with the 1950s test pilots and venturing ever faster and higher into the now-legendary missions that made astronauts into national heroes.

History at NASA

History at NASA PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aeronautics
Languages : en
Pages : 84

Get Book Here

Book Description


Canada's Fifty Years in Space

Canada's Fifty Years in Space PDF Author: Gordon G. Shepherd
Publisher: Collector's Guide Publishing
ISBN: 9781894959728
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
International space science began suddenly with the creation of COSPAR (Committee on Space Research) in October, 1958, and its first plenary meeting was held in London, in November the same year. Canada was at the table for both the creation and the first plenary meeting. This book describes the parallel growth of the Canadian space science program from that date up to the 50th Anniversary of COSPAR, to be celebrated in Montreal in July 2008. This work relates the history of ground-based activity that placed Canada at the forefront of nations with knowledge of space in 1958, gained primarily through observations of the aurora borealis by optical and radar methods. By the time of the International Geophysical Year, 1957-58, Canada was well established in this research and had built its own rocket payloads. During the sixties this activity increased tenfold with the inception of the Alouette/ISIS satellite missions in 1962, and a vigorous rocket program conducted at Fort Churchill and elsewhere. After the last Defence Research Board satellite, ISIS-11, was launched in 1971 the program changed direction; the National Research Council maintained the rocket program at a lower level and space opened up for Canadian instruments on international spacecraft leading to some highly successful missions. Long overdue, the Canadian Space Agency was established in 1989 and is now leading a more mature program including Canada's first scientific mission since ISIS-11 (SCISAT-1), the Earth-observing Radarsat-1 and a strong astronaut program. The final achievement of the fifty years is a Canadian-built lidar that is part of the NASA Phoenix mission and is on its way to Mars, destined to land there in May 2008.