Orbitec
“Space Garden”
Planet LLC
2004
Publisher’s Web Site
Apollo 11 Moon Dust Pen
W.I.S.E. Retail Solutions, Inc.
2008
Publisher’s Web Site
“Go For Launch: Space Encyclopedia Board Game”
Go For Launch, Inc.
1998
Publisher’s Web Site
Hunley, J.D.
“U.S. Space-Launch Vehicle Technology: Viking to Space Shuttle”
University Press of Florida
2008
ISBN13: 978-0-813-03178-1
Publisher’s Web Site
Seedhouse, Erik
“Tourists in Space: A Practical Guide”
Springer/Praxis
2008
ISBN13: 978-0-387-74643-2
Publisher’s Web Site
Goehlich, Robert A.
“Spaceships”
Apogee Books
2005
ISBN13: 978-1-894-95950-6
Publisher’s Web Site
Jefferis, David & Mat Irvine
“Return to the Moon”
Crabtree Publishing Co.
2007
ISBN: 0-778-73117-0
Publisher’s Web Site
Walker, Niki
“Eye of the Universe: The Moon”
Crabtree Publishing Co.
1998
ISBN: 0-865-05689-7
Publisher’s Web Site
Bailey, Gerry & Karen Foster. Illus. by Leighton Noyes & Karen Radford
“Armstrong’s Moon Rock”
Crabtree Publishing Co.
2008
ISBN: 0-778-73706-3
Publisher’s Web Site
takes a spicy Swedish turn this week, over at As(si)tronomi, a blog devoted by Assi Süer to “En blogg om mitt största intresse, astronomi”. This week’s “Carnival of Space“ focuses on near-Earth developments.
This time around we’re going to look at a pair of high-speed topics - orbital debris and asteroids. This is a really exciting category in the Lunar Library, and not just for the drama movies! Asteroids can provide an enormous abundance of resources should we go out an learn to harvest them, just as we’ve learned to harvest many of the plants and animals of the Earth. This time around we’re doing it so that we can stop tearing up our own planet to get at these things that we need for our technological society. You’ll hear the ‘economic’ claim that dumping mega-tonnes of platinum or nickel on the market will collapse prices. From a basic Econ 101 theoretical perspective that might be true, but it has to be looked at in the broader context of economic and technological activity. One of the many constraints we have on mechanical efficiency in the objects we manufacture, from lightbulbs to internal combustion engines, is the economic necessity imposed on the engineers of constantly trying to find less expensive but almost as good substitutes. In an economy of abundance, the right materials can be used for each application for maximum efficiency. This will enable an enormous demand for re-engineering the products we have into the best that they can be, and for finding new applications for materials like platinum that have previously been constrained in their use by their rareness and therefore cost.
This is kind of far-fetched economics from our current perspective, but calls to mind the fact that we’ve cherry-picked all of the easy sources for most of this stuff throughout history, and we’re increasingly having to look further out on the margins for sources of obscure elements that are necessary for things like flat-screen TVs. There are several planets worth of materials available in the small bodies of the inner Solar system. We just need to learn how to go out there and get them.
There’s another purpose for doing this as well. The meteorite that recently burned up over the Sudan announced itself with less than 24 hours notice before its doom. (thank goodness we have a nice thick atmosphere) This is because when you use telescopes to look for asteroids, you’re looking away from the Sun. Things like radar (such as the Arecibo Dish) can look Sunward, but there are all kinds of issues there. I’m convinced we need instruments up out of all the garbage we’ve strewn out to GEO, that can look towards (but not at) the Sun on a regular basis to collect data.
Speaking of garbage strewn out to GEO, we’re going to start out this time around with orbital debris.
READ MORE…
Bond, Peter
“Jane’s Space Recognition Guide”
HarperCollins
2008
ISBN13: 978-0-061-19133-6
Publisher’s Web Site
Alan Bean - Apollo Moon.
Not used with permission
Bean, Alan
The Alan Bean Gallery
On-line Moon Art Gallery
Librarian’s Note: It’s tough to get Moonwalker artist/astronaut Alan Bean out of his art studio. I was lucky enough to meet him a couple years ago at the Fair Park Planetarium re-opening, and had him autograph the copy of his book Apollo in the Lunar Library. He also has some art on display down in Austin at the LBJ Presidential Library for the exhibit “To The Moon - The American Space Program in the 1960s”
h/t to Space for Commerce
has pitched its tent, the biggest in the Universe, over at the Lounge of the Lab Lemming. This week’s Carnival of Space adopts the technique of starting at the Earth and looking further and further afield that was pioneered in part here at Out of the Cradle. Over 30 articles are presented this week, so join the crowd over at the Lounge.
It was about a decade ago that the first pieces of the International Space Station (ISS) starting making their way to station on-orbit. It represents our toe-hold in space, and the latest evolution of flight models dating back to the 1970s, but unique in that the pieces have come from all over the world. It is our most advanced laboratory, yet one that we have a fundamental difficulty in reaching in a regular and reliable fashion. A lot of folks are working on solving that problem, but once it is overcome and we can start shoveling people up into space we’re going to find that there is a lot of work to be done, from sciences at space stations to freeflyer super-microgravity platforms to cleaning up GEO and prepping for solar power satellites. We need instrumentation in higher orbits (like EML-1) to look Sunward for near-Earth objects like asteroids. We need to start honing our Solar system exploration skills on the Moon. We need to start visiting asteroids to see how they can be tapped for useful resources.
But that’s a little ways off, and we’re still at the first stages of creating a spacefaring civilization. The International Space Station is the most prominent result to date of that ambition, but also has a lot of issues to deal with. It would be great to use it as a staging platform to organize trans-LEO sorties, but that’s not what it was ‘designed for’. Its usefulness as a science laboratory is compromised by the very presence of the astronauts bumping into things and creating ‘jitters’ in the microgravity environment, which is why many scientists have long advocated the use of free-flyer platforms instead for their microgravity materials sciences experiments. EML-1 makes a great staging location for that activity for a whole host of reasons beyond the scope of this article. A limit of twelve dockings per year puts a very low ceiling on the amount of traffic at the ISS.
Regardless, the International Space Station is a triumph from many perspectives. The international cooperation alone is mind-boggling when you conceive of how much organizational effort was/is required. The engineering is phenomenal, with all kinds of spinoffs in things like couplings and seals and materials and so on. What do you make a cable sheath out of that can remain flexible from -100 F to +250 F? Can that kind of sheath find application here on Earth? The science is also great, though of course we don’t hear enough about it. Kids have even contributed their fair share, and I get to that later in the article. So without further ado, let’s start looking at some of the educational materials we have available to learn about the ISS.
READ MORE…
Kokh, Peter (ed.)
Moon Miner’s Manifesto
October 2008
#219
Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: Another terrific issue from the Moon Society. Whenever I learn something new (in this case the pole stars of the Moon), I’m always impressed. Lots of coverage of the recent Chinese spacewalk and some of their ambitions, as well as some background on the old Lunar Prospector mission that heightened the mystery of water at the Moon’s poles. There’s also a look at the Kindle electronic book, something I had noted in my last Lunar Library update in the form of a LunaKindle loaded with Moon reference books. If you’re not a member of the Moon Society, why not?
NASA
Tech Briefs
Vol. 32 No. 10
10/2008
Publisher’s Web Site
Librarian’s Note: This is like a super-duper issue at 136 pages. I just get giddy reading through all of the neat high technology developments, like Stable Calibration of Raman Lidar Water-Vapor Measurements. (That’s a good thing, really) There’s also a poster from DuPont of technology spinoffs that I’m going to have to mount on foamboard for use in public space outreach. The fact that we develop such cutting edge technology here in the U.S. gives me comfort that our economy is in fact fundamentally sound, even if a cabal of rich and connected idiots managed to completely trash our financial system (with ample participation from abroad as well, as we’re finding out). The next important economic buzzword is going to be value-creation, as we’ve managed to borrow significantly from our future value-creation, and we’re going to have to be super value-creative to get through this. Real value creation, not paper transaction creation. Crafts, trades, industries, services. These are going to do fine, especially if we keep up the cutting edge technology R&D.
Mindell, David A.
“Digital Apollo: Human & Machine in Spaceflight”
The MIT Press
2008
ISBN13: 978-0-262-13497-2
Publisher’s Web Site
Abadzis, Nick
“Laika”
First Second
2007
ISBN13: 978-1-596-43101-0
Publisher’s Web Site
Universe Today Review
Comic Book Resurces Review
Publishers Weekly Interview
Librarian’s Note: This is a touching tribute to Earth’s first space traveler, one that stays with you after the last page is turned as you try to reconcile the triumph with the tragedy.
Génius, professeur
“Mes Carnets aux Questions: La Lune”
Québec Amérique Jeunesse
2005
ISBN: 2-764-40834-X
Publisher’s Web Site
Stokes, Johanna. Illus. by Leno Carvalho
Station #3 (of 4)
Boom! Studios
08/2008
Publisher’s Web Site
Orme, Helen & David
“Blast Off: Let’s Explore the Moon”
ticktock Media
2007
ISBN13: 978-1-846-96047-5
Publisher’s Web Site
Via Satellite
Access Intelligence LLC
10/2008
ISSN: 1041-0643
Publisher’s Web Site
Moontasks University Design Contest
NASA Langley Research Center
Student Design Competition
Notice of Intent Due: Dec 15, 2008
Competition Home
Student Challenge: Design tools and instrumentation packages for the next generation manned moon rover:
* Navigation in the darkness around the Moon’s south pole
* Power supplies for rovers in the dark
* Sample retrieval and on-site analysis
* Radiation detection and avoidance
* Communication with lunar outpost, with orbiters, and with Earth
* Video capture of sorties for transmission back to Earth
* Astronaut recovery and transport back to outpost
* Lunar regolith mitigation strategies for rover and space suits
Awards to be won! Fame and Glory! Make your mark on the Future!
Librarian’s Note: If it’s supposed to be the south Lunar pole, then the Earth should be a lot closer to the horizon, if visible.
