A NASA insider highlights the current and historic roles of private enterprise in humanity s pursuit of spaceflight"

Ahead of the sixtieth anniversary of the dawn of the Space Age, this revisionist study examines the development of space policy during the Eisenhower administration. It challenges traditional scholarly assessments and argues that President Eisenhower's space policies were proa...

Introduces the early history of space flight, including the Chinese invention of the rocket, the pioneering ideas of Tsiolkovsky, the early experiments of Goddard, and various rocket and satellite launchings up through 1967.

After the launch of Sputnik, thousands of ordinary Americans became "Moonwatchers," a network of citizen-scientists who helped professional astronomers by providing critical and otherwise unavailable information about the first satellites.

This book provides answers to the questions of why human-kind should go into space, and on the relative roles of governments and markets in the evolution of the space economy. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach to answer those questions. Science and technology define the boundaries of what is possible. The realization of the possible depends on economic, institutional, and political factors. The book thus draws from many different academic areas such as physical science, astronomy, astronautics, political science, economics, sociology, cultural studies, and history. In the literature, the space economy has been analyzed using different approaches from science and technology to the effects of public expenditures on economic growth and to medium term effects on productivity and growth. This book brings all these aspects together following the evolutionary theory of economic change. It studies processes that transform the economy through the interactions among diverse economic agents, governments, and the extra-systemic environment in which governments operate. Its historical part helps to better understand motivations and constraints - technical, political, and economical - that shaped the growth of the space economy. In the medium term, global issues - such as population changes, critical or limited natural resources, and environmental damages – and technological innovations are the main drivers for the evolution of the space economy beyond Earth orbit. In universities, this book can be used: as a reference by historians of astronautics; for researchers in the field of astronautics, international political economy, and legal issues related to the space economy. In think tanks and public institutions, both national and international, this book provides an input to the ongoing debate on the collaboration among space agencies and the role of private companies in the development of the space economy. Finally, this book will help the educated general public to orient himself in the forest of stimuli, news, and solicitations to which he is daily subjected by the media, television and radio, and to react in less passive ways to those stimuli.

Explores an international network of artists, artist groups, and critics linked by their aesthetic and theoretical responses to science, science fiction, and new media. Focuses on the Italian Spatial Artist Lucio Fontana and French Painter of Space Yves Klein.

Chronicling the history of space rocketry, this resource details the discoveries and engineering innovations that have occurred--in both the United States and the former Soviet Union--from World War II to the early 1970s. From European war missiles to multibillion dollar spacecraft that orbit the earth today, this sourcebook covers the evolution of rocketry in great detail and discusses the impact rocket science has had on other areas of humanity. Filled with fascinating facts from history without technical jargon and specialized language, this reference will interest both space enthusiasts and general readers alike.