Böcker i Springer Praxis Books-serien

This book is the first regular annual to review each year's major astronomical discoveries. Its aim (and subsequent volumes issued annually) is to provide an annual astronomy review suitable for the popular science level reader.

This book updates the first edition for the status of knowledge in the physics of lake ice and the interactions between the ice cover and the liquid water underneath. Since the first edition was written in 2013, there has been a lot of progress in the field, in particular concerning environmental questions and the impact of climate change. Life conditions in ice-covered lakes and practical matters are now brought more into the picture so that the revision also properly serves as a handbook for applications. The author has worked widely with boreal lakes, polar lakes and Central Asian lakes that provides a wide geographical spectrum.Chapter 1 gives a brief overview and presents the research fields. The second chapter contains the classification of ice-covered lakes and observation techniques, especially remote sensing. In Chapter 3, the structure and properties of lake ice are presented including optics and geochemistry. Ice growth and melting are treated in Chapter 4, while the following chapter focuses on ice mechanics with applications to traffic on ice and ice loads. Chapter 6 goes into the exotic environment of pro-glacial lakes. Chapter 7 contains the stratification and circulation of the water body beneath lake ice, Chapter 8 presents the winter ecology of freezing lakes and discusses the lake ice interface toward the society, and Chapter 9 summarizes the climate change impact on lake ice seasons. The book ends into a brief closing chapter and list of references. Research problems for student learning are listed throughout the book. Annexes are included to provide numerical data of constants and standard formulae to help practical calculations and student tasks.Lake ice closely interacts with human living conditions, but people have learnt to live with that and to utilize the ice. In the present time this is true for on-ice traffic and recreation activities. Ice fishing has become a widely enjoyed hobby, and winter sports such as skiing, skating,and ice sailing are popular activities on frozen lakes. The lake ice response to eventual climate warming would appear as a shortening of the ice season due to the increasing air temperature and also as changing of the quality of the ice seasons via changes in ice thickness and structure. The book gives the whole story of lake ice into a single volume. The second, revised edition updates the content based on recent progress in winter limnology and ice physics research and applications. The author has contributed to lake ice research since the 1980s. In particular, his topics have been lake ice structure and thermodynamics, light transfer in ice and snow, ice mechanics in large lakes, and lake ice climatology. Mathematical modeling of ice growth, drift, and decay are covered in this research.

Provides a comprehensive review in two parts of the exploration of the Solar System, focusing on the technology of the robotic space probes that made it possible, including missions which - for a variety of reasons - were never completed.

All of the candidates were among the nation's elite pilots involved in testing new supersonic aircraft capabilities. some were test pilots on top secret and sophisticated aviation projects, while others were fleet admirals, prisoners of war, and proposed pilots for spaceflight programs such as the Dyna-Soar (X-20).

The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team will relate who these men were and offer far more extensive background stories, in addition to those of the more familiar names of early Soviet space explorers from that group.

This remarkable book gives a comprehensive account of the longest manned space mission of the time. The book ends with memories of all those affected by the DOS program and the tragedy of Soyuz 11 and looks forward to a continuation of the historic mission of Salyut.

In 'Paving the Way for Apollo 11' David Harland explains the lure of the Moon to classical philosophers, astronomers, and geologists, and how NASA set out to investigate the Moon in preparation for a manned lunar landing mission. It focuses particularly on the Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor missions.

This book provides unique access to the story of how scientists were accepted into the American Space Programme, and reveals how, after four difficult decades, the role of the heroic test pilot astronaut has been replaced by men and women who are science orientated space explorers.

The European Space Agency has a long history of human spaceflight, working with both NASA and the Soviet/Russian space agencies over the years.

The bold dream of lunar exploration was a national priority for both the US and the USSR during the Cold War era. From the earliest Russian Lunik probes to the United StatesΓÇÖ successful manned flights to the surface, every attempt to visit the Moon held significant technological and political weight.This book is a lucid and accessible account of humankindΓÇÖs attempts to reach the Moon, from the perspective of an engineer who worked on the Apollo program. It describes in some technical detail the various spacecraft that were designed and launched on the first lunar explorations. Focusing primarily on the US program, it includes several chapters on Russian manned and unmanned lunar missions of the time.The moon-bound spacecraft of the 1950ΓÇÖs through to the mid-1970s were remarkable for their performance, efficiency, and ruggedness, reflecting the best engineering art of the day. The book examines how every last bit of performance was wrung out of the existing technology, with the scale and stakes of each mission escalating as every attempt brought the two competing nationsΓÇöand all of humanityΓÇöcloser to the Moon.

This book addresses the complex technical challenges presented by remote space mining in terms of robotics, remote power systems, space transport, IT and communications systems, and more.

With the recent influx of spaceflight and satellite launches, the region of outer space has become saturated with vital technology used for communication and surveillance and the functioning of business and government.

This book introduces the reader to the wonders of Mars, covering all aspects from our past perceptions of the planet through to the latest knowledge on its history, its surface processes such as impact cratering, volcano formation, and glaciation, and its atmosphere and climate.

This book explains the hurdles Virgin Galactic had and still has to overcome en route to developing suborbital space travel as a profitable economic entity, and describes the missions that will be flown on board SpaceShipTwo Mk II, including high-altitude science studies, astronomy, life sciences, and microgravity physics.

Designing a habitat for the lunar surface? All these must be considered when the habitat is sized, materials specified, and structure designed. This book provides an overview of various concepts for lunar habitats and structural designs and characterizes the lunar environment - the technical and the nontechnical.

This book explores the once popular idea of 'Flexible Path' in terms of Mars, a strategy that would focus on a manned orbital mission to Mars's moons rather than the more risky, expensive and time-consuming trip to land humans on the Martian surface.

This book covers the possible manned mission to Mars first discussed in the 1950s and still a topic of much debate, addressing historic and future plans to visit the Red Planet. The chapters explain the motivations behind the plan to go to Mars, as well as the physical factors that astronauts on manned missions will face on Mars and in transit.

This book tells the story of the catastrophic impact of the giant 10 Km asteroid Chicxulub into the ancient Gulf of Mexico 65.5 million years ago. The aftermath of the Chicxulub's event initiated decades and more of major global climate changes including a "Nuclear Winter" of freezing darkness and blistering greenhouse warming.

This book focuses on the Interkosmos program, which was formed in 1967, marking a fundamentally new era of cooperation by socialist countries, led by the Soviet Union, in the study and exploration of space.

This book tells the story of the four missions to maintain Hubble''s successful operation. Between 1997 and 2009 these repaired, serviced and upgraded the instruments on the telescope to maintain its state-of-the-art capabilities. It draws on first hand interviews with those closely involved in the project. The spacewalking skills and experiences gained from maintaining and upgrading Hubble had direct application to the construction of the International Space Station and help with its maintenance. These skills can be applied to future human and robotic satellite servicing and maintenance activities as well, not only in Earth orbit but at locations deeper in space.A companion to this book, The Hubble Space Telescope: From Concept to Success, relates the events of the TelescopeΓÇÖs launch in 1990 and its rough start, after a 20-year struggle to place a large optical telescope in orbit. Originally intended to operate for fifteen years, Hubble has just passed its 25th anniversary, and there is every expectation that it will survive for thirty years. Despite its early problems, the Hubble Space Telescope has become a lasting legacy of the Space Shuttle program, and indeed is a national treasure.

MOMENTUM IS BUILDING for a return to the Moon. While much has been learned about the Moon over the years, we don't understand its resource wealth potential and the technologies to exploit those resources have yet to be developed, but there are a number of companies that are developing these capabilities.

Materials and Processes

Dyson relates the first five space shuttle flights from the personal perspective of mission planning and operations in Houston at the Johnson Space Center, based almost exclusively on original sources such as journals and NASA weekly activity reports.

Thousands of workers labored at Kennedy Space Center around the clock, seven days a week, for half a year to prepare a mission for the liftoff of Apollo 11. Using the Apollo 11 mission as an example, readers will learn what went on day by day to transform partially completed stages and crates of parts into a ready-to-fly Saturn V.

Jonathan Ward takes the reader deep into the facilities at Kennedy Space Center to describe NASA's first computer systems used for spacecraft and rocket checkout and explain how tests and launches proceeded.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of stellar structure, evolution and basic stellar properties.