History of Astronomy - Astronautics

Contents

• General Space History Websites
• NASA Websites
• Museums
• Foundations of Space Flight
• The Space Age
• Manned Space Flight
• Specific Technical Issues
• Space Flight in Imagination
• Related Pages on this Website

General Space History Websites

• Eric Weisstein's Treasure Trove of Science
• Astronautix.Com Mark Wade.
• Spaceline Dedicated To Covering The Past, Present And Future Of Cape Canaveral.
• Includes Spaceline History of Rocketry
• ASTR 103: The Conquest of Space course notes @ George Mason Univ.
• History of Space Exploration From Views of the Solar System, based on NASA information.
• Rocket & Space Technology by Robert A. Braeunig. Includes data tables about numerous vehicles. College level.
• Rocket History @ NASA Lewis K-12 education Rocket Activities
• History of Rocket Science, part of a rocket website for the Girl Scouts.
• Space history part 1- Our proud space heritage MSNBC Pencil News for Kids
• Rocket Science History BAF Satellite & Technology Corporation, Melbourne, FL
• National Geographic - Eye in the Sky
  Includes a section on the history of satellites.
• Raumfahrtgeschichte.de
  Space Flight History in German.
• Space Night - Lift-off Includes some history of rocket flight. (in German) @ Bayerischer Rundfunk:
• Future Fantastic - STARMAN @ BBC Tomorrow's World
• ECHO Science & Technology Virtual Center hosted by George Mason Univ.
  Link directory to a number of in-depth history pages on line.
• Space Stamp of the Day
  Stamps and Stories about the Beginning of the Space Age. (My website.)
• Also see the Space Missions Pages, including Directories with Spacecraft Mission Information.

NASA Websites

• National Aeronautics & Space Administration Homepage (NASA)
• NASA History Home Page
• NASA Historical Subject Reference Guide
• NASA Histories On-Line. Many books with detailed information!
• NASA History Series Publications includes other on-line publications and books available off-line, plus lists other books that are out of print, but which you may be able to find.
• NASA's History Office Search Page
• Many of the online NASA history books I have listed individually on my Book Links Page.
• Great Images in NASA library
• NASA Kennedy Space Center Historical Archive
• NASA Marshall Space Flight Center History
Includes:

• MSFC History Office: Rocketry through the Ages
• A Photographic Gallery of Dr. Wernher von Braun
• Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL) (NASA/Cal Tech):
• JPL Space Calendar
• Mission and Spacecraft Library (JPL)
• Also see Space Centers and Programs.

Museums

• The National Air & Space Museum Washington, D.C.
  They feature many resources. These are some:
• Space History Artifacts
• Current Exhibits
• Deutsches Museum - Astronautics
• Tsiolkovsky museum
• See Aviation History on my Flight Bookmarks Page for more museums.

Foundations of Space Flight

• Von Braun Dreams
  Presents a number of key individuals in 20th century astronautics history.
• Rocket Pioneers in Liquid Hydrogen as a Propulsion Fuel NASA SP-4404.
  Tsiolkovsky, Goddard and Oberth, with some discussion of the engineering physics.
• Tsiolkovsky museum
• Robert Goddard:
• NASA Facts: Robert H. Goddard and The First Liquid Fuel Rocket
• About Goddard Some information about Robert Goddard, @ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Welcome Page.
• 75th Anniversary of the 1st Liquid Fuel Rocket Launch NASA GSFC
• Dr. Robert Goddard archives at Clark University
• See Robert Goddard in the National Aviation Hall of Fame
• APOD- September 16, 1995 - Rockets and Robert Goddard
• APOD- March 16, 2001 - Rockets and Robert Goddard
  The date is the anniversary of the first liquid propellant rocket flight.
• Arthur C. Clarke
• The Man Who Saw the Future includes an interview and a bibliography, @ the BBC Program "The Works"
• Arthur C Clarke - 1945 Wireless World Article The Science Museum (UK).
  The article proposed the concept of communications satellites.
• Wernher von Braun
• Wernher von Braun Earth Observatory Library, NASA
• Wheels in Space NASA news item May 26, 2000.
  About Wernher von Braun and the proposed space stations of the 1950's.
• Interview with von Braun in "Before This Decade is Out...." Personal Reflections on the Apollo Program. NASA SP-4223.
• Saturn the Giant, Building the boosters to send men beyond Earth by Wernher von Braun. In Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, NASA SP-350.
• See Wernher von Braun @ Nat'l Aviation Hall of Fame.

The Space Age

• CNN - The Cold War
• The U.S. Army in Space by the U.S. Army Redstone Arsenal
• Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age NASA Histories On-Line
• The National Air & Space Museum Washington, D.C.
• The Space Race.
• Gallery 210--Apollo to the Moon
• Life Magazine - A Giant Leap for Mankind From Sputnik to Man on the Moon.
• NASA Kennedy Space Center Historical Archive
• Heritage of Spaceflight - The 45th Space Wing Patrick AFB, Cape Canaveral
• Spaceline -- about rocket launches at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Includes some pages about the broader history of rockets.
• Cape Canaveral Air Station Virtual Tour by Rob Svirskas
• Sounds from the First Satellites @ AMSAT
• History of the Deep Space Network JPL
• History of NASA space tracking in Australia @ Canberra Deep Space Communicatons Complex
• Space -- The Final Frontier Rafael Martínez Ramón.
  History of the Russian and American space programs through postal stamps.
• Sven's Space Place -- Space history, Space radio tracking, and Space technology
• Legendary Observer of the Cold War Space Race Dies Space.Com, January 20, 2000.
  An obituary of Geoffrey Perry, the physics teacher in Kettering, England, who tracked satellites with his students. The "Kettering Space Group" surprised the world when they discovered a secret Soviet launch site in 1966.
• Space-based Observations of the Earth (History) NASA Earth Observatory website.
• Common Heritage - Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and North American Aviation Boeing history website. Covers many programs and former companies that are now part of Boeing.
• See the Space Missions Pages
• See the Earth Missions Section.
• The Space Research Centers and Programs Page has links to space programs of other (non-U.S.) countries, as well as centers for U.S space programs.
• See NASA above! Also, many online NASA history books that cover this period are listed individually on the Book Links Page.
• See my website, Space Stamp of the Day - Stamps and Stories about the Beginnning of the Space Age.

Manned Space Flight

• BBC News Gagarin - son of a peasant, star of space The first man to orbit the Earth.
• 40th Aniversary of the Mercury 7 Astronauts NASA.
• Mercury Orbits the Earth by Bryan Ethier, American History, October '97
• John Glenn Three Orbits to History
• Friendship 7 (MA6) NASA History.
• Apollo, Gemini, Mercury; The voyages to the Moon
• Apollo Expeditions to the Moon (#SP-350)
• Space Shuttle History links by the NASA History Office
• See NASA above!
• NOTE: There is a special section just about Apollo Moon Missions on the Missions to the Solar System Page.
• Information about Space Shuttle Missions at the Earth Missions section.
• Information about the International Space Station at the Earth Missions section.

Specific Technical Issues

• U.S. Army FM 1-506 Fundamentals of Power Plants
• Chptr 2 Background, Development and Theory
• Liquid Hydrogen as a Propulsion Fuel, 1945-1959 by John L. Sloop. NASA SP-4404.
• NASA Experimental Communications Satellites NASA Glenn Center.
• Computers in Spaceflight -- The NASA Experience by James E. Tomayko
• See the Space Flight Technology Page.

Space Flight in Imagination

• Voyages - A Smithsonian Libraries Exhibition
• Journeys of the Mind - Explaining the Heavens
• 2001: A Space Odyssey — Are We There Yet? Boston Museum of Sciene - Special Washburn Lecture Series, November 2001 (archived online).
• The Tech - 2001 Destination Space
• 2001 Collectible Exhibit
• Zvi Har'El's Jules Verne Collection
• Cartoons of the 1930's includes Buck Rogers. American Studies @ The University of Virginia.
• Space Art through the Ages J. Paul Getty Trust
• Space Art in Children's books 1950's to 1970's
• Children's Space Books by Alexa Smith
• BBC - Cult TV Programs
  Includes pages about Star Trek, Dr. Who, Gerry Anderson's "Supermarionation," and The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• More about Gerry Anderson's Programs
• Gerry Anderson - Pages specifically about Thunderbirds and Stingray. BBC.
• Gerry Anderson BBC Interview
• Thunderbirds Online (by Carlton Int'l Media, which owns the license).
  [ This page has the original HTML version in case you have trouble with the Flash and Quicktime. ]
• Thunderbirds page by Ronny Kavli.
• UFO Series Home Page by Marc Martin.
• Fanderson
• Hour of the Wolf
  A Science Fiction - Fantasy radio program on WBAI (New York) that has been on the air since about 1972. I used to listen to it during the mid-1970's in the early morning before school.
• Space Age City
• Also see Museums above.
• Also see Astronomy & Culture.
• Also see Astronomy Pictures - Space Art.

Related Pages on this Website

• Space Missions Pages
  Look under the appropriate topic heading. For example, Apollo is on the Planetary Missions page under past Moon missions.
• Missions within the Solar System are on the Missions to the Solar System page.
  Each planet has subsections for current, future and past missions.
• Missions near Earth are in the Earth Missions Section.
• Lunar missions are in the Moon Missions Section.
• Space Observatory Missions have their own page.
• Space Flight Technology Page.
• Astronomy & Culture
• Astronomy Pictures.
• Astronomy by Wavelength
• Related Science Links - Engineering