Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Watching Earth from Space: How Surveillance Helps Us -- and Harms Us (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration) (repost)



Watching Earth from Space: How Surveillance Helps Us -- and Harms Us (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration)
Praxis; 1st Edition. edition (November 1, 2010) | ISBN: 1441969373 | 285 pages | PDF | 165 MB

Our planet is constantly monitored by hundreds of space-borne instruments. This book describes the technology of those instruments and the sciences that provide useful information from them. It also discusses the political implications of space-borne monitoring. From the moment satellites were launched into orbit their ability to see what was happening on a global scale was appreciated — and feared. This well researched book strives to answer such diverse questions as: Are satellites really a threat to individual privacy? How bad, really, is climate change and global warming? Why can’t we find Osama bin Laden? Does the world have enough fresh water? The military side of the story is linked to the big security issues that we face, such as terrorism and civil wars. The civilian side of the story involves numerous successful collaborations in weather forecasting, navigation, communications, and other such "peaceful" uses of satellite surveillance. How the world handles the knowledge gained from these Earth watchers will be critical in the years to come, and Norris skillfully leads us through the issues and possible paths we can take.


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Thursday, December 9, 2010

Proceedings of the Third UN/ESA/NASA Workshop on the International Heliophysical Year 2007 and Basic Space Science



Hans J. Haubold, A.M. Mathai - Proceedings of the Third UN/ESA/NASA Workshop on the International Heliophysical Year 2007 and Basic Space Science
Publisher: Springer | 2010-01-01 | ISBN: 3642033237 | PDF | 190 pages | 3.68 MB

This book represents Volume II of the Proceedings of the UN/ESA/NASA Workshop on the International Heliophysical Year 2007 and Basic Space Science, hosted by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Tokyo, 18 - 22 June, 2007. It covers two programme topics explored in this and past workshops of this nature: (i) non-extensive statistical mechanics as applicable to astrophysics, addressing q-distribution, fractional reaction and diffusion, and the reaction coefficient, as well as the Mittag-Leffler function and (ii) the TRIPOD concept, developed for astronomical telescope facilities.
The companion publication, Volume I of the proceedings of this workshop, is a special issue in the journal Earth, Moon, and Planets, Volume 104, Numbers 1-4, April 2009.


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