Space and Astronomy Page

Space and Astronomy: Decade by Decade by Marianne Dyson

...is a historical reference book that reveals how astronomers unravel the mysteries of what makes the Sun shine, how stars collapse into black holes, and how the universe expands. It is the story of dreamers who designed rockets to bring back knowledge of other worlds and other galaxies. This new title in the Twentieth-Century Science set published by Facts On File describes the progress of astronomy and the development of spaceflight from 1901 to 2000. Read press release (1.1 MB doc file).

Check out Space and Astronomy at Freeman Memorial Library in Clear Lake, Texas: 520.904 Dys.

Reviews

"'Space and Astronomy' is nothing less than a very readable, very informative, and very enjoyable history of what has been accomplished in studies of space and astronomy in the 20th century. That's an enormous subject, but Dyson deftly breaks it up into easily understandable bites."--Ben Bova, Naples Daily News (August 18, 2007). Read full review at www.nss.org.

"Space is extremely well detailed, the writing remains readable from start to finish, and an excellent index provides near-encyclopedic access. A fine history." --Jeffrey A. French, formerly at Willoughby-Eastlake Public Library, Willowick, OH (School Library Journal, March 1, 2008).

Why did I write this book?

Space is my passion. A child of Apollo, I was inspired and motivated to study math and science in the hope that one day, women might be included in the space program. I was the first woman in my family to graduate from college, earning a degree (cum laude) in physics. While in graduate school in astronomy, I applied to NASA and was fortunate to become one of the first ten women flight controllers. I worked as a Flight Activities Officer in Mission Control for the early space shuttle program. I left NASA to raise my children and began sharing my passion for space through writing and speaking. My first book won the Golden Kite for nonfiction, and my third won the American Institute of Physics science writing award.

Through SCBWI, I met other writers who shared my love of science. One of them contacted me about helping him with a space and astronomy book for Facts On File. I had just finished an assignment as a science consultant (on Space University) with Scholastic, and this opportunity sounded like a good fit with my background. I started as a coauthor, but it quickly became apparent that the research job was much larger than either of us had anticipated, and would require my full-time attention. After a change in schedule and a renegotiated contract, I became the sole author of Space and Astronomy.

It was the most difficult book I have written to date. Time and again I found myself reading into the wee hours of the night to satisfy my curiosity about some historical figure or to secure a deeper understanding of a complicated concept that I needed to explain in simple terms. Oftentimes the data I found was not in a useful format. One example was my attempt to sketch the Martian oppositions between 1894 and 1909. I thought this data would be readily available in an almanac, and expected it would be in the form of a nice orbital chart with the Sun at the center. Instead it came to me in columns of distances and phase angles of the Earth and Sun and the longitudes of Earth and Mars. Combining this with historical records of Mars observations, and with the aid of an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, I drafted the first figure of the book. Every chapter offered new and different challenges. I spent weeks tracking down birth and death dates (December 30, 1906 on the old Russian calendar is January 12, 1907 in the new calendar), questioning astronomers about their papers (lambda is the variable used for dark energy), and reading reading reading biographies and historical texts and technical journal articles.

The task of condensing one hundred years and tens of thousands of words of notes down to only the most significant events seemed impossible. It became the "never-ending book." Everything else in my life was postponed until "after I get this book done." In October of the first year, I thought I'd be mostly done by February. In February, I thought August was a good bet. In August, I thought I'd be done in October. In October, I thought surely by December I'd be finished. In December, it seemed February was likely. By February I knew it would never be "done."

Though I submitted the final draft at the end of March 2006 (and then reviewed galleys in the winter of 2006 and 2007), my head was so full of things I yearned to know more about, I realized that while this book may be history, the fields of space and astronomy are very much unfinished. Astronomers still don't know what 95 percent of the universe is made of! No woman has yet walked on the Moon, and no one at all on Mars. Too old now to be an astronaut myself, perhaps by my writing and speaking about astronomy and space, some other young girl will be motivated to study her math and science and discover a gate to another universe or leave her footprints on Titan. I look forward to writing about her accomplishments in a 21st century version of Space and Astronomy.

Excerpt from the Introduction:

"For thousands of years, humans have scanned the sky and charted the movement of celestial bodies. The daily and seasonal patterns of the Sun, Moon, and stars guided sailors home, dictated the timing of planting and harvesting, and became an inspiration for festivals, celebrations, and holidays. The appearance of novae, comets, and storms of "shooting stars" lighting up the predawn hours were interpreted as lucky signs, dire omens, or special messages from the gods. These practical and spiritual connections of astronomy with human activity motivated and inspired improvements in observations and technology, which led to a deeper interest in exploring what lies beyond the outskirts of this galaxy and the next."

Contents (with Scientist of the Decade in parentheses):

1901-1910: Development of a New Astronomy (Percival Lowell)
1911-1920: Giant Stars and General Relativity (Henry Norris Russell)
1921-1930: The Expanding Universe (Edwin Hubble)
1931-1940: Understanding What Makes Stars Shine and Rockets Fly (Robert Goddard)
1941-1950: From War to Space (Wernher von Braun)
1951-1960: The Dawn of the Space Age (Sergei Pavolovich Korolev)
1961-1970: Putting Humans on the Moon (Robert Gilruth)
1971-1980: From the Moon to Jupiter (Carl Sagan)
1981-1990: Laboratories in Space (Vera Rubin)
1991-2000: Space Telescopes and Stations (Geoffrey Marcy)

Conclusion
Bruce Medalists
Glossary
Further Reading
Index

Stellar Colors: Pass your cursor over the navigation buttons (About...Site Map) above. The colors of the stars are in order from hottest to coolest (temperature-wise!) just like they are on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (included in chapter 2). Stars are classified by their color and those colors correspond to the surface temperatures of the stars. The classes are designated by letters: OBAFGKM which astronomy students remember with the phrase: Oh Be A Fine Girl (Guy) Kiss Me! The hottest stars, O and B, are violet/blue, A and F stars are white, G (like our sun) are yellow, K are orange, and M are red. Brown dwarfs do not have enough mass to sustain nuclear fusion, so are not stars, but are too large to be planets. So, like my "Site Map" are in a category of their own!

List of Figures (See sample at end.)

Chapter 1
Using Lunar Spectrum and Velocity Shift to Find Composition of Planetary Atmospheres
Martian Oppositions 1894-1909
Reflecting v. Refracting Telescopes

Chapter 2
Parallax
The Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram
Period Luminosity Relation for Variable Stars
Curved Space

Chapter 3
Hubble Classification of Galaxies
Hubble's Law
Expanding Universe
The First Liquid-Fueled Rocket

Chapter 4
CNO (Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen) Cycle
Reactions of the Proton-Proton Chain

Chapter 5
V-2/A4 Rocket
Peenemunde
German Rocket Team Locations
Steady State Theory

Chapter 6
Spiral Arms of the Milky Way
Hoyle's Cosmological Framework
Comparison of First Satellite Launchers
Van Allen Belts
Mercury and Vostok Capsules

Chapter 7
Apollo Lunar Landing Options
Voskhod with Airlock
Effects of Earth's Atmosphere on Spectra
Pulsar Model

Chapter 8
Skylab
Olympus Mons Compared with Earth?s Largest Mountains
Pioneer Plaque
Gravitational Lens/Double Quasar

Chapter 9
Shuttle Flight Sequence
Spacelab
Gravity Assist of Voyager 2
Galaxy Rotation

Chapter 10
Hubble Servicing
Doppler Shift Method
How Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Works
Cosmic Distance Measuring Methods*

* Book figures are in black white. This figure was colorized by the artist, Bobbi McCutcheon, for the web. For reprint rights, contact Facts On File, 1-800-322-8755.
Cosmic Distance Measuring Methods caption: During the 20th century, astronomers went from simple parallax to many new ways to measure the distance to stars and galaxies.

Corrections/Updates

Despite the best efforts of my eagle-eyed copyeditors, I managed to slip a few errors past them. Please correct and/or update the following: Page xv, Marilyn Hopman should be Marilynn with two n's. Page 130, Walter Shirra died just after the book went to print. The dates after his name should be (1923-2007). Page 152, the English units for Apollo 5 payload capacity are off by a factor of ten. Please change 806,432 pounds to 80,643.2 pounds. Kilograms are correct. Page 198, "puddy" should be "putty." (Word did underline this, but it underlined so many technical words I got in the bad habit of ignoring it!) Page 207, add a hyphen after Sunyaev's date (1943-). He did indeed live longer than one year! Please send any corrections or updates you find to me. These will be included in any future reprints. Thank you!