Space Flight

Advances over the past decades in space flight technology have allowed U.S., Russian, and other space programs to not only increase the frequency of manned space flights but also to increase the duration of these flights. As such, a large body of knowledge has been developed regarding the ways in which space flight affects the health of the personnel involved. Now, for the first time, this body of clinical knowledge on how to diagnose and treat conditions that either develop during a mission or because of a mission has been compiled by Drs. Michael R. Barratt and Sam L. Pool of the NASA/Johnson Space Center. This text is a must have for all those associated with aerospace medicine.

Modern aerospace vehicles, such as the space shuttle, other launch vehicles, and long-range ballistic missiles, do not discriminate between atmospheric and space flight. Most texts on flight dynamics, however, make this artificial distinction and therefore do not simultaneously cover aircraft and spacecraft. Bridging this gap in the literature, Atmospheric and Space Flight Dynamics is a unified presentation, demonstrating that the two disciplines have actually evolved from the same set of physical principles.

This introductory text covers all the key concepts, relationships, and ideas behind spaceflight and is the perfect companion for students pursuing courses on or related to astronautics. As a crew member of the STS-55 Space Shuttle mission and a full professor of astronautics at the Technical University of Munich, Ulrich Walter is an acknowledged expert in the field.

Many readers will doubtless be astonished to learn that animals were being fired aloft in U.S. and Soviet research rockets in the late 1940s. In fact most people not only believe that the Russian space dog Laika was the first canine to be launched into space, but also that the high-profile, precursory Mercury flights of chimps Ham and Enos were the only primate flights conducted by the United States. In fact, both countries had sent literally dozens of animals aloft for many years prior to these events and continued to do so for many years after. Other latter-day space nations, such as France and China, would also begin to use animals in their own space research.

The majority of books dealing with prospects for interstellar flight tackle the problem of the propulsion systems that will be needed to send a craft on an interstellar trajectory. The proposed book looks at two other, equally important aspects of such space missions, and each forms half of this two part book.