Abstract
Humanity has dreamt of traveling beyond our cradle and into space since, at least, the time of the Roman conquest of Greece, after the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC. In what is considered the earliest known fiction about travel to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare, Lucian of Samosata wrote a satirical piece in 150 AD called True History. In part of this story a company of adventuring heroes are swept upwards in a giant waterspout shortly after sailing westward through the Pillars of Hercules (today known as the Strait of Gibraltar). After seven days and seven nights, they arrive on the Moon to find themselves embroiled in a war between the King of the Moon and the King of the Sun over the Morning Star (Venus). The Sun wins.
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- 1.
The definitive English language biography of Von Braun is Michael J Neufeld’s Von Braun—dreamer of space, engineer of war.
- 2.
Note that Pluto was still categorized as a planet at this time, but is now classified as a dwarf planet.
- 3.
Within the UK the weather forecasting agency, the Met Office, was an executive agency of the Ministry of Defence until July 2011 when it transferred into the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
- 4.
ESA Technology Transfer Programme, “Company wins spin-off prize for keeping potato crisps intact”, 27 April 2009, http://www.esa.int/ttp, date cited May 2011.
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Bekey, I., “Advanced Space System Concepts and Technologies”, AIAA, 2003. ISBN: 978-1884989124.
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For communications satellites, the annual “International Communications Satellite Systems Conference (ICSSC)” provides up-to-the-minute information (mainly non-military).
For navigation satellites, the annual Institute of Navigation (ION) GNSS conference provides the most authoritative English language non-military information.
For space science, the annual COSPAR conference provides a global update.
For space exploration, the annual International Astronautical Congresses provides wide-ranging and global updates.
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Macdonald, M., Norris, P., Spencer, D.B. (2014). Introduction. In: Macdonald, M., Badescu, V. (eds) The International Handbook of Space Technology. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41101-4_1
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