Product Description: It is a beginning. Over forty-five years have elapsed since the X-15 was conceived; 40 since it first flew. And 31 since the program ended. Although it is usually heralded as the most productive flight research program ever undertaken, no serious history has been con-assembled to capture its design, development, operations, and lessons...read more

Product Description: Title 14 presents regulations governing the activities of the Department of Transportation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the areas of aeronautics and space, including: aircraft, airmen, airspace, air traffic, certification of air carriers and operations, and airports...read more

Product Description:   When Galileo lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on 18 October 1989, it began an interplanetary voyage that took it to Venus, two asteroids, back to Earth, and finally on to Jupiter. The craft’s instruments studied Jupiter’s enormous magnetosphere and its belts of intense radiation...read more

Product Description:   An engrossing read, Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight is a volume consisting of scholarship on the current state of the discipline of space history presented in a joint NASA and NASM conference in 2005. The essays presented in the book question such issues as the motivations of spaceflight, and the necessity, if any, of manned space exploration...read more

Product Description:  On the 20th anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon, President George H.W. Bush stood atop the steps of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and proposed a long-range human exploration plan that included the successful construction of an orbital space station, a permanent return to the Moon, and a mission to Mars...read more

Product Description:   Science in Flux traces the history of one of the most powerful nuclear test reactors in the United States and the only nuclear facility ever built by NASA. In the late 1950s NASA constructed Plum Brook Station on a vast tract of undeveloped land near Sandusky, Ohio...read more

Product Description: Title 14 presents regulations governing the activities of the Department of Transportation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the areas of aeronautics and space, including: aircraft, airmen, airspace, air traffic, certification of air carriers and operations, and airports...read more

The planet Mars has long held a special fascination and even mythic status for humans. While not the closest planet to Earth, scientists have considered it to be the planet that most closely resembles Earth and thus is the other planet in our solar system most likely to contain life. Since before the space age began, people have wondered about the “red planet” and dreamed of exploring it. In the twentieth century, robotic spacecraft and then human space flight became a reality. Those who wanted to explore Mars in person felt that this might finally become a reality as well. The Apollo program, which put twelve Americans on the surface of the Moon, certainly encouraged the dreamers and planners who wanted to send astronauts to Mars. Indeed, many people in and out of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have felt that human exploration of Mars is the next logical step in human space flight after the Moon. Clearly, however, many obstacles have remained. Human travel to and from Mars probably would take many months at best. Thus the biomedical and psychological implications of such long-duration missions are daunting. The logistics of getting enough food, water, and other supplies to Mars are also challenging at best. What would astronauts do once they got to Mars? How long would they stay on the planet’s surface and how would they survive there before returning to Earth? The financial cost of sending humans to Mars would almost surely be measured in billions of dollars. Aside from technical and financial issues, there remains the political question of why we should send humans to Mars at all. David Portree takes on these questions in this monograph. By examining the evolution of 50 mission studies over the past 50 years, he gives us a sense of the many options that Mars human space flight planners in the United States have explored. Portree covers a wide variety of ideas for human exploration of Mars, ranging from Wernher von Braun’s of the 1950s to the Space Exploration Initiative of 1989. These concepts, culled from a much larger pool of studies, range from hugely ambitious flotilla-style expeditions to much leaner plans. This monograph provides historians, space policy practitioners, and other readers with a very valuable overview of how much planning has already been done. If humans do go to Mars any time in the near future, it is quite conceivable that their mission profile will resemble one of the plans described here. NASA SP-2001-4521

Product Description: This monograph is a testament to the efforts of many people overcoming multiple technical challenges encountered while developing the XV-15 tilt rotor research aircraft. It is a comprehensive and detailed documentation of more than 40 years of effort at the NASA Ames Research Center designing this unique class of aircraft...read more

Product Description: On January 25, 1984, in his annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, President Ronald Reagan announced that “tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within the decade...read more

Product Description: Genesis was one of NASA’s Discovery missions, and its purpose was to collect samples of solar wind and return them to Earth. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory was the managing Center; the California Institute of Technology was designated the principal investigator and project team leader...read more

Product Description: A number of groups have advised NASA on various aspects of the ISS, particularly following the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. Their reviews have been timely and their contributions significant. The International Space Station (ISS) Safety Task Force was established to review a broad range of Station vulnerabilities and consequences...read more