A concise history of spaceflight, from military rocketry through Sputnik, Apollo, robots in space, space culture, and human Spaceflight today.
Whether we become a multiplanet species, as some predict, or continue to call Earth home, this book offers a useful primer..
He describes the internationalization and privatization of human Spaceflight after the Cold War, the cultural influence of space science fiction, including Star Trek and Star Wars, space tourism for the ultra-rich, and the popular desire to go into space.
He analyzes the two rationales for the Apollo program: prestige and scientific discovery (this last something of an afterthought).
Cold War space race and reminds us that NASA resisted adding female astronauts even after the Soviets sent the first female cosmonaut into orbit.
He then discusses the Soviet-U.
S.
Neufeld begins with the origins of space ideas and the discovery that rocketry could be used for spaceflight.
Since the 1960s, unmanned military and commercial spacecraft have been orbiting near the Earth, and robotic deep-space explorers have sent back stunning images of faraway planets.
Neufeld explains that "the space program" should not be equated only with human spaceflight.
In this volume of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Michael Neufeld offers a concise history of spaceflight, mapping the full spectrum of activities that humans have developed in space.
The Soviets launched Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957; less than twelve years later, the American Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon.
Spaceflight is one of the greatest human achievements of the twentieth century.
A concise history of spaceflight, from military rocketry through Sputnik, Apollo, robots in space, space culture, and human Spaceflight today
