Space History

From nineteenth-century abolitionism to Black Lives Matter today, progressive social movements have been at the forefront of social change. Yet it is seldom recognized that such movements have not only engaged in political action but also posed crucial philosophical questions about the meaning of justice and about how the demands of justice can be met. Michele Moody-Adams argues that anyone who is concerned with the theory or the practice of justice—or both—must ask what can be learned from social movements.

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.

Wally Schirra was the only one of the original seven NASA astronauts to command a spacecraft in all three pioneering space programs - Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This chronicle of his experiences takes us into space on Schirra's 1962 Mercury flight that orbited Earth six times and aboard Gemini for the first rendezvous of two manned craft in space.

Decía Carl Sagan que para hacer una tarta de manzana primero hay que crear el universo. Harry Cliff, prestigioso físico de la Universidad de Cambridge, emprende la búsqueda de la receta perfecta recogiendo los ingredientes a través del cosmos, en los núcleos de estrellas moribundas, y retrocediendo en el tiempo hasta la fracción de segundo inmediatamente posterior a la que todo se creó, para entender, entre otras muchas cosas, de dónde proviene la materia.

In the scorching summer of 1878, with the Gilded Age in its infancy, three tenacious and brilliant scientists raced to Wyoming and Colorado to observe a rare total solar eclipse. One sought to discover a new planet. Another - an adventuresome female astronomer - fought to prove that science was not anathema to femininity. And a young megalomaniacal inventor, with the tabloid press fast on his heels, sought to test his scientific bona fides and light the world through his revelations.

Have you ever wondered if there are seasons on the moon or if space tourism will ever become commonplace? So has Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock. In fact, she earned her nickname “Lunatic” because of her deep fascination for all things lunar. In her lucidly written, comprehensive guide to the moon, Aderin-Pocock takes listeners on a journey to our closest celestial neighbor, exploring folklore, facts, and future plans.

Bridging the gap between the history of technology and its geographical and cultural contexts, this book offers an unprecedented reevaluation of the impact of the space program on its surrounding landscape, introducing a new framework for interpreting the agency's legacy.

In 1610, Galileo published the Siderius nuncius, or Starry Messenger, a "hurried little masterpiece" in John Heilbron's words. Presenting to the world his remarkable observations using the recently invented telescope, Galileo dramatically challenged our idea of the perfection of the heavens and the centrality of the Earth in the universe. Indeed, the appearance of the little book is regarded as one of the great moments in the history of science.

In the Calcol Crystal Book series, the spiritual author takes a whimsical look at the sensational ancient records unearthed and recovered from the Nineveh Library of Sumer. In the library, purportedly true stories of the "Epic of Creation" were documented on extraordinary clay tablets that were still intact. This resulting conundrum conjured in the author's mind intimate, personal rites of conquest, adventure, and romance escalating up to Nibiru's destiny - a destiny whose seed would salt and catalyze life on Tiamat.

Sarah Cruddas has been looking to the skies her entire life. Her childhood was spent staring at the moon and hearing stories of the space race, and she worked in a fruit factory to fund her love of the subject. Her subsequent career studying astrophysics and becoming a television host and space journalist has seen her report on space exploration and chase launches across the world. In Look Up Sarah explains why she has always been a passionate advocate for why space should matter - to everyone.

In Search of a Theory of Everything takes listeners on an adventurous journey through space and time on a quest for a unified "theory of everything" by means of a rare and agile interplay between the natural philosophies of influential ancient Greek thinkers and the laws of modern physics.

In Apollo's Legacy, space historian Roger D. Launius explores the many-faceted stories told about the meaning of the Apollo program and how it forever altered American society. The Apollo missions marked the first time human beings left Earth's orbit and visited another world, and thus they loom large in our collective memory. Many have detailed the exciting events of the Apollo program, but Launius offers unique insight into its legacy as seen through multiple perspectives.

Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes.

Since the first humans looked up and saw the sun swallowed by darkness, our species has been captivated by solar eclipses. Astronomer and anthropologist Anthony Aveni explains the history and culture surrounding solar eclipses, from prehistoric Stonehenge to Babylonian creation myths, to a confirmation of Einstein's theory of general relativity, to a spectacle that left New Yorkers in the moon's shadow, to future eclipses that will capture human imaginations.

The airplane changed the course of history. Above all, it changed the history of the United States. When the Wright brothers invented their flying machine, Americans lived in a nation of two dimensions, circumscribed by lines drawn on a conventional map. A century later, their nation existed - in fact, reigned - in three dimensions. Two million Americans slipped the surly bonds of earth daily, carried aloft by aircraft operating in every part of the world.

The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century has often been called a decisive turning point in human history. It represents, for good or ill, the birth of modern science and modern ways of viewing the world. In What Galileo Saw, Lawrence Lipking offers a new perspective on how to understand what happened then, arguing that artistic imagination and creativity as much as rational thought played a critical role in creating new visions of science and in shaping stories about eye-opening discoveries.

On June 3, 1769, the planet Venus briefly passed across the face of the sun in a cosmic alignment that occurs twice per century. Anticipation of the rare celestial event sparked a worldwide competition among aspiring global superpowers, each sending their own scientific expeditions to far-flung destinations to time the planet’s trek.

From designers to engineers, and even communication specialists and the builders who assembled these towering rockets, hundreds of thousands of people worked on getting humans to the moon, yet only a few have been recognized for their contributions. George D. Morgan sets the record straight by giving these forgotten figures of space travel their due.

In 1957 the Soviet Union sent Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into space. America took up the challenge to explore the next frontier. A dozen years, and 25 billion dollars later, the mission of Apollo 11 would yield man's finest hour. For that was the first time man's foot left prints on another heavenly body. And that was only the beginning. Apollo 11 is the incredible story of how a nation forged the technology during the turbulent 1960s to slip humanity from the bonds of its native planet. This inside look remembers those who made the great enterprise succeed.

Deborah Santana is best known for her marriage to music icon Carlos Santana–a thirty-year bond that endures to this day. But as a girl growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s, daughter of a white mother and a black father–the legendary blues guitarist Saunders King–her life was charged...