How Spacecraft Fly Spaceflight Without Formulae
About half a century ago a small satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched. The satellite did very little other than to transmit a radio signal to announce its presence in orbit. However, this humble beginning heralded the dawn of the Space Age. Today literally
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Graham Swinerd
How Spacecraft Fly Spaceflight Without Formulae
CoperniCus Books An Imprint of Springer Science+Business Media In Association with praxis puBlishing ltd
Graham Swinerd University of Southampton Hampshire, UK
ISBN: 978-0-387-76571-6 e-ISBN: 978-0-387-76572-3 DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-76572-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008931301 © 2008 Praxis Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in the United States by Copernicus Books, an imprint of Springer Science+Business Media. Copernicus Books Springer Science+Business Media 233 spring street New York, NY 10013 www.springer.com
Printed on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 springer.com
This book is dedicated to the memory of John Robert Preston (1952±2007)
Foreword
The late science fiction author Sir Arthur C. Clarke, in an article published in 1945 in Wireless World, suggested that it would be possible to build a global communications system by placing artificial satellites in a strategically located orbitÐthe so-called geostationary Earth orbit. From their vantage point high above the Earth, the satellites would be able to relay information from any place to any other place around the world. Just twenty years later, Clarke's tentative proposal became a reality with the launch of the world's first commercial communications satelliteÐIntelsat 1. Now, a further four decades on from Intelsat 1, many of us would find it difficult to adjust to a world without satellites. Our cars and mobile phones routinely come equipped with satnav, the weather forecasts that we watch on our satellite TVs display images taken from space, Earth observation satellites monitor the threat of global warming and science spacecraft, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, have transformed our view of the universe. There can be no doubt that communications satellites, and the plethora of other satellites in diverse orbits, have profoundly affected the way we live. But how are these satellitesÐthese marvels of technologyÐdesigned? In what orbits can they operate? Once they are in orbit, how can we control them? What hazards do they face? How do we get them into orbit in the first place? Moving beyond Earth orbiting satellites, how can we design and propel spacecraft to rendezvous with comets or land on other planets? And, perhaps most importantly of all, what is the future of manned space exploration? In this highly readable and entertaining book, Graham Swinerd shares with us his immense and personal experience of the first half-century of the Space Age, to answer these and many other questionsÐand all without recourse to mathematics! Stephen Webb Portsmouth, England April 2008
Preface
As I write this introduction, it just happens to be 50 years since the launch of the first spacecraft. This dawning of the Space Age occurred in
