検索キーワード： 航空学・宇宙航行学

Humans have dreamed of travelling to the stars for as long as we knew that those points of light in the sky were stars like the Sun. Now, in the 21st century, there are actual studies and plans to send interstellar space probes to the nearest stars. Probably to Alpha Centauri which is only 4.3 light years away. Only! What is the history of plans to get to the nearest star? And what are the plans today to make these ideas a reality?

Ambassadors from Earth relates the story of the first unmanned space probes and planetary explorers - from the Sputnik and Explorer satellites launched in the late 1950's to the thrilling interstellar Voyager missions of the '70's - that yielded some of the most celebrated successes and spectacular failures of the space age. Jay Gallentine delivers a quirky and unforgettable look at the lives and legacy of the Americans and Soviets who conceived, built, and guided those unmanned missions to the planets and beyond.

Come Fly with Us is the story of an elite group of space travelers who flew as members of many space shuttle crews from pre-Challenger days to Columbia in 2003. Not part of the regular NASA astronaut corps, these professionals known as “payload specialists” came from a wide variety of backgrounds and were chosen for an equally wide variety of scientific, political, and national security reasons.

Outposts on the Frontier reveals how the Soviets and the Americans combined strengths to build space stations over the past 50 years. At the heart of these scientific advances are people of both greatness and modesty. Jay Chladek documents the historical tapestry of the people, the early attempts at space station programs, and how astronauts and engineers have contributed to and shaped the ISS in surprising ways.

Homesteading Space is more than a story of technological and scientific success; it is also an absorbing, sometimes humorous, often inspiring account of the determined, hardworking individuals who shepherded the program through a near-disastrous launch, a heroic rescue, an exhausting study of Comet Kohoutek, and the lab's descent into the Indian Ocean. Featuring the unpublished in-flight diary of astronaut Alan Bean, it is replete with the personal recollections and experiences of the Skylab crew and those who worked with them in training, during the mission, and the return.

The Space Age began just as the struggle for civil rights forced Americans to confront the long and bitter legacy of slavery, discrimination, and violence against African Americans. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson utilized the space program as an agent for social change, using federal equal employment opportunity laws to open workplaces at NASA and NASA contractors to African Americans while creating thousands of research and technology jobs in the Deep South to ameliorate poverty.

A four-star general pays tribute to a remarkable man in this biography. Believing that America owes a debt to a great character, a superb aviator, and a devoted citizen that was not paid, General Kenney tells the story of Paul Irvin "Pappy" Gunn with the hope that it will help discharge some of that debt. Gunn, who was known during World War II as an expert in daredevil low-level flying and as a hero and mechanical genius, modified light and medium bombers and transformed them into attack aircraft to hit Japanese targets in New Guinea, the Philippines, and Okinawa.

The door to unlimited space development that the human race has been waiting for, is a step-by-step pathway to private sector blossoming in orbit without government funds. This is described in a completely revised investor guide section. Experience how not just billionaires but everyone, can contribute to the expansion of the species into the last great realm, the infinite cosmos.

A century ago very few people dreamed of space travel. Today it is the most daring and technologically sophisticated quest ever undertaken, being driven not just by government agencies such as NASA and ESA, but also by visionaries such as Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic), Elon Musk (SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin). To mark the 50th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing, this major drama-documentary series charts the definitive story of the past, present and future of humankind’s exploration of space. The Space Race is narrated by Kate Mulgrew and features a full cast.

This is the first biography in English of Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich, who was hanged as the explosives technician of the "People's Will" party of terrorists who assassinated Russian Tsar Alexander II with a thrown grenade on March 1, 1881. While in prison awaiting execution, Kibalchich conceived and drew the design of the first rocket-powered human-piloted flying device, thus qualifying him in history as a "terrorist rocket pioneer".

The New York Times best-selling, "meticulously researched and absorbingly written" (The Washington Post) story of the trailblazers and the ordinary Americans on the front lines of the epic Apollo 11 moon mission. It’s a story filled with surprises - from the item the astronauts almost forgot to take with them (the American flag), to the extraordinary impact Apollo would have back on Earth, and on the way we live today.

How does a troubled boy from California come to be one of the world's most renowned aviators? How does a group of brothers who were high school dropouts from New Hampshire go on to build some of the most advanced aircraft of the time? How do these men become forever linked to one of the greatest air races in history? This is the story of Jimmy Doolittle, the Granville Brothers, and the amazing Gee Bee R-1 Racer.

In this one-of-a-kind memoir, Jack Clemons - a former lead engineer in support of NASA - takes listeners behind the scenes and into the inner workings of the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs during their most exciting years. Discover the people, the events, and the risks involved in one of the most important parts of space missions: bringing the astronauts back home to Earth. Clemons joined Project Apollo in 1968, a young engineer inspired by science fiction and electrified by John F. Kennedy's challenge to the nation to put a man on the moon.

More than 30 years ago, Frank White coined the term "overview effect", to describe the cognitive shift in awareness that results from the experience of viewing Earth from orbit or the moon. He found, that with great consistency, this experience profoundly affects space travelers' worldviews - their perceptions of themselves and our planet and our understanding of the future. White found that astronauts know from direct experience what the rest of us know only intellectually: We live on a planet that is like a natural spaceship moving through the universe.

Beyond dares to imagine a fantastic future for humans in space - and then reminds us that we're already there. Human exploration has been an unceasing engine of technological progress, from the first homo sapiens to leave our African cradle to a future in which mankind promises to settle another world. Beyond tells the epic story of humanity leaving home - and how humans will soon thrive in the vast universe beyond the Earth.

During the summer of 1969 - the summer Americans first walked on the moon - musician and poet Patti Smith recalled strolling down the Coney Island Boardwalk to a refreshment stand, where "pictures of Jesus, President Kennedy, and the astronauts were taped to the wall behind the register." Such was the zeitgeist in the year of the moon. Yet this holy trinity of 1960s America would quickly fall apart.

In the 1960s humans took their first steps away from Earth - and for a time our possibilities in space seemed endless. But in a time of austerity, and in the wake of high-profile disasters like Challenger, that dream has ended. In early 2011 Margaret Lazarus Dean traveled to Cape Canaveral for NASA's last three space shuttle launches in order to bear witness to the end of an era.

For fans of The Astronaut Wives Club, The Mercury 13 reveals the little-known true story of the remarkable women who trained for NASA space flight. In 1961, just as NASA launched its first man into space, a group of women underwent secret testing in the hopes of becoming America’s first female astronauts. They passed the same battery of tests at the legendary Lovelace Foundation as did the Mercury 7 astronauts, but they were summarily dismissed by the boys’ club at NASA and on Capitol Hill.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: 21 layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex" - a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

This book is an overview of both the history of aliens and UFOs, as well as a review of hidden aerospace and propulsive technologies. Where did these technologies come from? And how have they developed in the intervening years? Also, I try to answer some questions of how likely some of these claims are - because some things having to do with UFOs and aliens are much more documented than others. There are also many alien-related and secret programs that most of you listeners may have never heard of. The most interesting ones are summarized here.