Books in the Springer Praxis Books series

In Space Enterprise - Living and Working Offworld, Dr Philip Harris provides the vision and rationale as to why humanity is leaving its cradle, Earth, to use space resources, as well as pursuing lunar industrialization and establishing offworld settlements.

Provides a comprehensive account of the recent 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' Mars Exploration Rover missions. Discusses the nature of life on Mars in terms of the most primitive forms of life on Earth, and reviews the implications of there being life on both planets.

This is the story of the work of the original NASA space pioneers; men and women who were suddenly organized in 1958 from the then National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) into the Space Task Group. A relatively small group, they developed the initial mission concept plans and procedures for the U. S. space program. Then they boldly built hardware and facilities to accomplish those missions. The group existed only three years before they were transferred to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, in 1962, but their organization left a large mark on what would follow.Von Ehrenfried''s personal experience with the STG at Langley uniquely positions him to describe the way the group was structured and how it reacted to the new demands of a post-Sputnik era. He artfully analyzes how the growing space program was managed and what techniques enabled it to develop so quickly from an operations perspective. The result is a fascinating window into history, amply backed up by first person documentation and interviews.

This book celebrates the final spaceflight in the Mercury series, flown by NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper, who led an adventurous life in the cockpit of airplanes and spacecraft alike, and on his Mercury mission he became the last American ever to rocket into space alone.

Three years later, following the sudden cancellation of the USAF's highly classified Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project, seven military astronauts were also co-opted into NASA's space program. This book represents the final chapter by the authors in the story of American astronaut selections prior to the era of the Space Shuttle.

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.

Even a suitable skeptic of certain pronouncements about the age and structure of the Universe should be pleased with the large steps that have been taken in furthering our understanding of the Universe since the early 1990's. In short, the Universe of our expectations rarely matches the Universe as it is discovered.

Contents are divided into major topics where the three "souls" of modern celestial mechanics (dynamical systems, Solar System and stellar systems, spaceflight dynamics) play a major role.

This book covers Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) imaging of Aleutian volcanoes. InSAR is a relatively new remote sensing tool whose images enable the construction of detailed mechanical models to enhance the study of magmatic processes.

This unique book includes 250 maps related to various factors of meteorology and climate and their effects on the African continent. It provides detailed coverage of fundamentally important issues concerning African meterology, climatology, tropical circulation, rainfall, drought and climate change.

Soviet Robots in the Solar System provides a history of the Soviet robotic lunar and planetary exploration program from its inception, with the attempted launch of a lunar impactor on September 23, 1958, to the last launch in the Russian national scientific space program in the 20th Century, Mars 96, on November 16, 1996.

Recent surveys have provided new and updated information into public insights of the nascent space tourism industry. The book also provides a manual for future suborbital and orbital private space explorers. Over half of the book is dedicated to providing for the first time essential training material for private spaceflight participants.

This updated second edition features multi-author, comprehensive and authoritative reviews of intra-seasonal variability. It has a balance of observation, theory and modeling and is a single-source reference for those interested in this key phenomenon.

Solar sail orbital dynamics and solar radiation pressure form the foundations of the book, but the engineering design of solar sails is also considered, along with potential mission applications.

Along with a review of the development of crew survival and escape methods from the earliest designs to today's discussions of systems aboard the ISS, the author examines the wilderness training programs and abort simulations used to help prepare the crews.

To commemorate the momentous 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering journey into space on 12th April 2011, a series of five books - to be published annually - will explore this half century, decade by decade, to discover how humanity's knowledge of flying, working and living in space has changed.

The new edition of this comprehensive reference on astronomy observation methods and techniques includes recent developments in astronomical detectors and instrumentation, from the invention of the CCD in 1970 to the current era of huge telescopes.

This will be the first book that deals with the use of commercial satellite imagery to monitor non-proliferation of nuclear weapons non-intrusively from space by an international organisation.

The variety of applications of remotely sensed data to ocean science has grown significantly and new areas of science are emerging to exploit the gobal datasets being recovered by satellites, particularly in relation to climate and climate change, basin-scale, air-sea interaction processes (e.g.

The main focus of this book is the study of environmental dynamics in the Arctic, coupled with ecosystem dynamics.

In Life in the Solar System and Beyond, Professor Jones has written a broad introduction to the subject, addressing important topics such as, what is life?, the origins of life and where to look for extraterrestrial life.

This book provides important and valuable insights into the genesis of tropical cyclones. It is based on scientific findings from the performance of satellite data processing and a series of scientific marine expeditions to the tropics.

Robert Strom and Anne Sprague present, for the first time, a brand new treatment of the study and exploration of Mercury through the Mariner and then Messenger missions that will stir the imagination of readers and break new ground in the scientific frontier of our understanding of the planet.

This book offers a uniform collection of probe and CCD terrestrial images for each lunar dome, and presents information on morphological measurements and rheologic properties including a novel classification system and a new map of the distribution of domes.

This volume offers an accessible journey through the Universe in search of water. The author shows how scientists detect water, from the nearest planets to the furthest galaxies. Coverage includes the role played by water in studies of habitable exoplanets.

Brave men and women have reached extreme heights in balloons, aircraft and rocket ships over the past two centuries, from the first untethered balloon flight to the first flights in the newly defined stratosphere, through to the present flights that continue to set new records.