Ever since Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity burst upon the world in 1915 some of the most brilliant minds of our century have sought to decipher the mysteries bequeathed by that theory, a legacy so unthinkable in some respects that even Einstein himself rejected them. Which of these bizarre phenomena, if any, can really exist in our universe? Black holes, down which anything can fall but from which nothing can return; wormholes, short spacewarps connecting regions of the cosmos; singularities, where space and time are so violently warped that time ceases to exist and space becomes a kind of foam; gravitational waves, which carry symphonic accounts of collisions of black holes billions of years ago.............
The rise of Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) and its eventual demise represents one of the landmark episodes in the history of the American space program. The story of this failed initiative is one shaped by key protagonists and critical battles. It is a tale of organizational, cultural, and personal confrontation,
Skirmishes involved the Space Council versus NASA, the White House versus congressional appropriators, and the Johnson Space Center versus the rest of the space agency, all seeking control of the national space policy process. The demise of SEI was a classic example of a defective decision-making process that lacked adequate high-level policy guidance, failed to address critical fiscal constraints, developed inadequate programmatic alternatives, and garnered no congressional support..........
Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clark, creator of one of the world's best-loved science fiction tales, revisits the most famous future ever imagined in this NEW YORK TIMES bestseller, as two expeditions into space become inextricably tangled. Heywood Floyd, survivor of two previous encounters with the mysterious monloiths, must again confront Dave Bowman, HAL, and an alien race that has decided that Mankind is to play a part in the evolution of the galaxy whether it wishes to or not.
Fifty years after the alien message forbidding humans to approach the moon Europa, an expedition to Halley's Comet is forced to violate the prohibition in the name of mercy. Though lacking the lyrical prose of The Songs of Distant Earth , Clarke's latest addition to the story begun in 2001: a space odyssey will entertain fans of the "black monolith."
Heinlein, Robert A. - The Menace From Earth - Audiobook + Text
From a master of science fiction comes eight startling stories of time and space. In "The Year of the Jackpot", a statistician charts a curve of unusual happenings throughout the earth, only to find that his facts and figures prove the approach of the end of the world. In "By His Bootstraps," a man steps thirty thousand years into time and is trapped in the fourth dimension with three strange, yet oddly familiar, people.
The Seven Secrets of How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist Explains the methods that rocket scientists use—expressed in a way that could be applied in everyday life. The book illustrates the methods (the 7 secrets) with anecdotes, quotations and biographical sketches of famous scientists, ideas from sci-fi, personal stories and insights, and occasionally a bit of space history. The author reveals that rocket science is just common sense applied to the extraordinarily uncommon environment of outer space and that rocket scientists are people, too.
