Description
Book SynopsisThis engaging survey of the Space Age links science and technology with politics and popular culture, war and peace, and crises and controversies. It examines the history of spaceflight as a mirror of human thought and action across the Earth.
The volume encompasses the new astronomy and sciences of the modern era, the early dreamers and pioneers after 1903, the national competitions of the First World War, the rocket states that prepared for the Second World War, the rivalries and âœspace raceâ of the Cold War between the US and USSR, as well as more recent developments including the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, national space programs, orbital technologies, transhumanism, and military and commercial ventures in space. It also stresses the importance of geography in the geopolitics of spaceflight competition and in the nature of the planetary biosphere. Taking a chronological approach to lived human experience and threshold achievements, the chapters show h
