Introduction to Space Physics
592143
This is a very comprehensive book. It is excellent if you are beginer who knows basic electricity and magnetism, but have not dealt with space plasmas.
3170096
Huntley introduces a refinement of the notion of "dimension" in essentially two ways.

1. He treats the components of a vector as dimensionally distinct. For example, a displacement vector [x,y] is said to have dimensions of x-meters in the x direction, y-meters in the y direction. It turns out all physically meaningful equations must be homogeneous with this distinction made, and the method of dimensional analysis is often made more powerful by this technique.

2. He treats mass as a measure of quantity (substantial mass) and mass as a measure of inertia (inertial mass) as dimensionally distinct. Again, all meaningful equations must be homogeneous with this distinction, and in some cases considerable analytic power is gained.

The book is esssentially the statement of these points and then a series of perhaps 30 examples of dimensional analysis with and without these distinctions, demonstrating the increased analytic power gained by their use. The examples cover a wide range of disciplines, such as mechanics, thermodynamics, and electrodynamics. As a collection of illuminating examples of dimensional analysis using both the traditional and the refined methods, it is excellent.
352985
Good reference on orbital mechanics. Blends the mathematics with good examples and plenty of illustrative graphics. Has a few typos. Most of them are in references to equations with one number off. Best of the 5 references I have in my own library on the subject. Covers the topic all the way from Keppler physics to more modern algorithms. The downloaded Appendix D for the MATLAB scripts is quite comprehensive.
1095366
This book is one of the most widely referenced titles in books and journal articles dealing with the structural design and engineetring activities of satellites. Even though it is a bit old, its information is still relevant.
2556957
Book Review: The Complete Book of UFOs - Fifty years of Alien Contacts and Encounters by Jenny Randles

This thick paperback of 392 pages outlines the history of UFO sightings and alien abductions, alien contactees and UFO religious cult groups, crop circles, and other phenomena from the 1880s onwards. The book is rather out of date but was an excellent account of these phenomena to 1997 when this revised edition was published. It is clearly evident to me that Randles at this stage was rather skeptical of all of these phenomena.

The book is well written but most of the stories have been outlined in many other books before and since. However, this books strength is the examples of phenomena which have occurred on the British Isles and many of them I have not encountered in other books previously.

There are no illustrations but there is a short bibliography and index at the back of the book. I recommend this book for your library.

Dr Trevor J. Hawkeswood

Author: Beetles of Australia (1987), Host plants of Chrysomelidae of the World (1995), Spiders of Australia (2003) and Light and Dark (2013)
4470978
The Defense Satellite Program (DSP)-truly one of the most innocuous code names ever devised for a critical military program-arose in the earliest years of the space age as a means of detecting the launch of a rocket from anywhere in the world. With the development of ballistic missiles in the 1950s, for the first time in the history of the United States our two great oceans could not protect us from sustained attack and destruction. To warn against a Soviet ballistic missile attack, and thereby to allow time for the launch of a counterattack, the Department of Defense sponsored the development of satellites ringing the globe that would use infrared photographic technology to detect missile launches. The theory behind the system was that the heat signature from the rocket blast would be detected by satellites in space and then show up on infrared scopes at military monitoring posts. Through this process the time and place of launch, as well as the missile trajectory, could be ascertained within seconds of launch.
It was a brilliant concept but it took years for it to come to fruition. The first effort, Project MIDAS, experienced numerous technical problems, but finally reached a turning point in 1963 when MIDAS 7 detected the first missile launch from space. MIDAS confirmed the concept, and the DSP program, with first launch in 1970, has provided early warning of missile launches ever since. Through 1997 eighteen DSP satellites had been placed in orbit, not all of them operational of course at the same time.
Jeffrey T. Richelson's history of this program, "America's Space Sentinels," is an especially important and welcome addition to the literature of the military space program. It provides as comprehensive an understanding of this effort as is possible in the current environment, using a wealth of declassified documents to piece together this program's evolution from idea to implementation and operational life. It is, of course, not the final word on this subject because of still-classified materials that should one day be made available about DSP, but it represents a benchmark in the historiography.
Especially welcome is Richelson's discussion of DSP's employment in the post-cold war era. He provides an excellent overview of its use to detect Scud missile launches in the Gulf War of 1991. He also describes how it detected the test firing of a new Iranian missile in 1998 and its use in piecing together the details of airplane accidents, such as the September 1997 collision of American and German military aircraft off the Atlantic coast of Africa. He ends with a discussion of the follow-on missile launch detection program, the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), which is due to come on line at the end of the century.
From the time when DSP served as the backbone of the nation's strategic early warning system during the cold war through its continued use in the still very threatening climate of the 1990s to its replacement by a presumably more capable system, this book is an important contribution to the public's understanding of space-based military systems. It should be required reading for all who are interested in the strategic defense of the United States in the nuclear era.
1500623
This book is an excellent read on the study of deep space. Don't be scared by the publication date. I read this book in the early 90s and found it very engrossing. I recently purchased a copy here on Amazon and found it to be equally interesting all over again. The material in this book is not dated. In fact, it is helpful for understanding the scientific discoveries in space that have been made since this book's original publication date.
1780217
Recently, by chance, Nobel laureate Gerardus t Hooft ( the head) came to my attention and I decided to buy some books he authored.  Introduction to GENERAL RELATIVITY is a small booklet  covering  on  page 1 to page 86  the basic physical ideas, the mathematical concepts and applications  of the subject very well and ends with gravitational waves. I like to compare parts of it to   Die Grundlage der allgemeinen Relativittstheorie from 1916 to see how ideas are progressing.  It is not a must on a bookshelf and the Author has made it free for humanity on his home page,  but I want to micro-recompense the author a little bit for his contributions to state of the art  physics, he has brought to life  so far. In addition my  copy  may be found, in the near or far future, by a young mind and awake his interest for nature and its laws, which I think is a wonderful way to spent the days during ones presence on earth ( or mars). Furthermore I like to have books with me on vacation  etc. to look up things and read and books are still very handy. Last but not least I recommend you the authors home page and his speeches on you tube; listen to the funny introduction when his host try to spell his name and pay attention to his humorous formulations.
673001
The discovery of pulsars is now less than 40 years old. But in that time pulsars have been in the forefront of the discoveries in cosmology. An astounding amount of information exploring the limits of theoretical physics has been obtained from these pulsating light signals.

This book, now in its third edition, would be of interest to the advanced undergraduate astronomy or astrophysics student. Or more likely it can serve as an introductory text to pulsars at the graduate school level or as a source of reference to the researcher. Among other things, it gives a catalog of the 1483 known pulsars.

The text begins with the early history of the discovery of pulsars by Jocelyn Bell during her graduate work at Cambridge (for which her advisor Anthony Hewish received the Nobel prize). From here the book chronicles the discoveries made by other researchers made since that time along with the changes in the theory that these discoveries brought about.
1251861
The following is from my Xanga site AeroGo, which gives helpful info to students and others interested in going into the aerospace field:

I don't try too hard to turn my kids into space cadets, but when this film came out I took all but the youngest to go see it, way down at Moody Gardens in Galveston.

For those familiar with Gerard O'Neill's concepts for space colonies, much of it will be familiar, but the film is well-scripted and the graphics are great, especially in 3D if you can find it.  Apparently a lot of the graphics were from veteran space artist Pat Rawlings, and quite good, but my favorite is a scene of Saturn and rings, from its moon Enceladus, created by Fujitsu.  I wonder if there's a poster of that somewhere.

There's a dramatic part of the film where the hero lands on a comet, which in 3-D looks pretty harrowing, with chunks of ice and snow floating all over and hitting everything.  Of course, with the results from the recent Deep Impact mission, scientists now think comets may be more like puffballs or "dirty dustballs" or even "brittle sponges" than "dirty snowballs" with large ice chunks, though water and organic molecules were found on Tempel I.  Nevertheless, the film was a huge step forward for promoting space awareness;  I'm just sad to say there's still nothing else like it.
3279397
Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us To The Edge of a New World  by Sean Carroll is an excellent book about the nature of newly found particles like the Higgs Boson particle which is responsible for mass.

Carroll describes the Higgs Boson particle as a vibration around a steady value everywhere throughout the universe rather than a vibration around zero. The Higgs Boson particle has the potential to release energy like a ball rolling down a hill. Once fields are pushed from the preferred state, they are given potential energy.

Left on their own, Higgs Boson particles vibrate and dissipate energy by transferring it to other fields according to the author. The strength of weak interactions is 246 GeV; whereas, the Higgs Boson field sits at the lowest energy state on the bottom of a pendulum arc.

The author suggests creating Higgs Boson particles by detecting particles they decay into from a steady state. The objective of modern science is to prove where the Higgs Boson particles originate. Without Higgs Boson, scientists could not fathom how elementary particles have mass at all.

To date, scientists have found combinations of quarks and gluons that smash together to form the Higgs Boson particle. Once Higgs Bosson is created, the particle gives mass to other particles which created it. The author explains that the Higgs Boson particles are created at high energies. Space and time are known to change at high velocities according to the theory of relativity. Time slows down and lengths contract along the direction of motion.

Carroll shows how Dr. Richard Feynman described bosons geometrically. Forces carrying bosons are depicted with wavy lines. Fermions are depicted with solid lines and the Higgs Boson particle is shown with a dash. The Feynman geometry
of bosons looks a bit like the characters in Morse Code.

Dr. Feynman showed diagrammatically how multiple gluons feed into a quark with a Higgs Boson as an output. Higgs Boson particles travel less than a billionth of an inch between their origination and decay. The process of proving how they exist and disintegrate is a continuing challenge for scientists which is limited by the fact that matter can neither be created nor destroyed.

Particle at the End of the Universe is an important scientific work which explains current research findings on the Higgs Boson particle, as well as the scientific challenges inherent in proving the existence of the particle and the decay mechanism.

Credits: First Published by Blogcritics
1005612
First, I present brief survey of the material sandwiched between these Covers :
Three Chapters consume Analysis: Complex Variables, Theory Distributions, Exterior Differential Forms, Fifty Pages Each.
Part of the text is devoted to Differential and Integral Equations:Ordinary, Partial, Integral--of  50, 80 & 30 pages, respectively.
Chapters 7,8 & 9 are written in French, thus the text, although not the math, remains partly inaccessible to me.
(that is, pages 348 to 463, Numerical Approximations and Optimization, including Calculus of Variations).
Final Two Chapters: Probability--40 pages, and Quantum Mechanics--40 pages.
The Preface: "...for students who already have good grounding, for professors to brush-up or add to their knowledge,
to modernize or assist them in their research..."
Now, I survey the highlights--as I discern them:
(1) Deschamps, author of the Chapter of Differential Forms, should be required reading for all undergraduate students.
Ending, as he does, on these words: "There is no need to memorize the many special formulas of vector analysis, no need to restrict oneself to three- dimensional spaces. Although Exterior Algebra is part of tensor algebra, it is,in fact, simpler and seems to apply directly to more situations in the physical world." (This claim he substantiates throughout this entire, remarkable, Chapter). I reiterate: Required Reading !
(2) De Jager, author of the Chapter on Distributions, offers much of value. Starting at an elementary vantage point, proceeding apace to advanced level, culminating in  examples which  include solution to Klein-Gordon Equation.
(3) Fritz John presents Partial and Integral Equations, here made most comprehensible--especially in light of his physical examples.
These examples include: two dimensional steady fluid flow, waves on tractionless surface of elastic material, forced periodic oscillations of pendulum, gravity waves  in channel of finite depth. Thus, a pleasant mix of theory and applications.
(4) A brief section (Chapter on Probability) discusses Diffusion and Brownian Motion, advanced but lucid. An interesting section of this Chapter (ten pages) is devoted to discussion of Information Theory.
(5) Concluding with Yamanouchi's Quantum Mechanics. The focus: Lie Groups and their Representation. This is required reading !
Thus, here presented, a panoramic view  of (advanced) mathematics applied to physics.
Highly Recommended for collateral reading and enrichment.
4914210
A Fantastic book,  My parents had purchased me a copy when I was a child and I loved it.  After watching the first episode of magic school bus (they explore our solar system) on Netflix my 4 year became fascinated with space so I bought him a used copy.  My one regret is that the copy was supposed to be very good and is instead  falling apart.  I guess when I paid .69 what did I expect.  Don't let my bad experience dampen your expectations.  It is a great book to explore space with your children.
4235910
I enjoy space travel and science fiction. This book was simple to read and wasn't written with too much scientific jargon.
3890969
Brian Greene's book is a fascinating tale about the state of physics and its revolutionary concepts today.

Beginning with the universe as a game of chance and after the already well-known uncertainty principle, superstring theory and symmetry (-breaking), he explains
non-locality: the fact that long range quantum connections can bypass space separation.
decoherence: the constant bombardment of objects by constituents of their environment reduces the probabilities inherent to quantum mechanics to coin tosses and roulette wheels.
the discontinuity of space and time and the disintegration of spacetime; 'the form of spacetime is an adorning detail that varies from one formulation of a physical theory to the next, rather than being a fundamental element of reality.'
the Higgs field as the source of inertia.
the unknown dark matter and dark energy, respectively 25% and 75 % of all matter in the universe.
the holographic principle: maybe, the universe's real physical processes take place only on a thin distant surface that surrounds us, and all we see and experience is merely a projection of those processes.

The last chapters are more phantasies: teleportation and time travel.
However, I found his comments on free will less convincing.

I prefer Stephen Hawking's solution (in his book 'Black Holes and Baby Universe'), where he states that already on the microlevel in the quantum universe the outcome of everything is uncertain.

A must read.

Like Brian Greene, I recommend highly the works of Lee Smolin.
681877
This book presents the recent experimental evidence and theoretical considerations that support the existence of absolute simultaneity or a preferred frame. Chapters discuss Einstein's Special and General Relativity, Aspects' and others experiments on the EPR correlations, Bohm-deBroglie quantum physics, Lorentzian interpretations of relativity, a means of defining absolute similtaneity in terms of a conservation principle for spacetime, the notion of absolute simultaneity in a universe with a Robertson-Walker line element, and related topics. It has an Introduction by Craig and Smith and chapters by William Lane Craig, Craig Callender, Quentin Smith, Anthony Valentini, Tim Maudlin, Franco Selleri, Tom Van Flandern, Michael Tooley, Richard Swinburne,, Thomas Crisp, and John Lucas. It should interest physicists and philosophers of physics.
3647793
I feel that this book has the bachelor level college class status.  It gives a good overall definition of the space environment and is easy to understand.  The book does not go in-depth but is great to keep around as a  "space environment dictionary".  It has excellent illustrations  and graphs that relate to the contents of the book and are explained well.