The International Space Station is the largest vehicle ever assembled in space, and represents one of the most amazing achievements in the history of the human species. This series of five videos provides an introduction to this incredible feat of engineering. It starts with some basic facts about the Station’s orbit, attitude and fleet of…
Review: Go, Flight – The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control, 1965 – 1992 (2015)
Go, Flight by R. Houston and M. Heflin is a typical example of the excellent works published since 2007 by the University of Nebraska Press in their Outward Odyssey: A People’s History of Spaceflight Series. The narrative covers the early years of human spaceflight in the United States, from Gemini all the way to the first turbulent decade…
Review: Rocket Boys (1998)
Rocket Boys is a marvellous, masterfully written autobiography. It recounts the formative years of Homer H. Hickam, Jr., a young man growing up in the mining town of Coalwood (West Virgina) with a burning passion for rocketry. It is the story of how he and his high school friends overcame technical, financial and personal hurdles…
Review: Mission Control (2015)
For a long time, I could not find any book addressing the topic of mission control operations in a generic, conceptually satisfying and complete way. There is, of course, ample and excellent literature about the heroic days of the Mission Operations Control Rooms (MOCR) during Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. The best known examples are certainly Failure…