Fly Me to the Moon

An Insider's Guide to the New Science of Space Travel

Edward Belbruno

176 pages, parution le 22/01/2007

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Résumé

When a leaf falls on a windy day, it drifts and tumbles, tossed every which way on the breeze. This is chaos in action. In Fly Me to the Moon, Edward Belbruno shows how to harness the same principle for low-fuel space travel--or, as he puts it, "surfing the gravitational field"

Belbruno devised one of the most exciting concepts now being used in space flight, that of swinging through the cosmos on the subtle fluctuations of the planets' gravitational pulls. His idea was met with skepticism until 1991, when he used it to get a stray Japanese satellite back on course to the Moon. The successful rescue represented the first application of chaos to space travel and ushered in an emerging new field.

Part memoir, part scientific adventure story, Fly Me to the Moon gives a gripping insider's account of that mission and of Belbruno's personal struggles with the science establishment. Along the way, Belbruno introduces readers to recent breathtaking advances in American space exploration. He discusses ways to capture and redirect asteroids; presents new research on the origin of the Moon; weighs in on discoveries like 2003 UB313 (now named Eris), a dwarf planet detected in the far outer reaches of our solar system--and much more.

Grounded in Belbruno's own rigorous theoretical research but written for a general audience, Fly Me to the Moon is for anybody who has ever felt moved by the spirit of discovery.

Sommaire

A Moment of Discovery
An Uncertain Start
Conventional Way to the Moon
A Question
Chaos and Surfing the Gravitational Field
Using Art to Find Chaotic Regions
WSB--A Chaotic No-Man's-Land
Getting to the WSB--Low Energy Transfers
Rescue of a Lunar Mission
Significance of Hiten
Salvage of HGS-1, and a Christmas Present
Other Space Missions and Low Energy Transfers
Hopping Comets and Earth Collision
The Creation of the Moon by Another World
Beyond the Moon and to the Stars
A Paradigm Shift and the Future

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Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Princeton University Press
Auteur(s)	Edward Belbruno
Parution	22/01/2007
Nb. de pages	176
Format	15 x 19
Couverture	Broché
Poids	272g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780691128221
ISBN13	978-0-691-12822-1