Opening The High Frontier

"Opening the High Frontier" is about how to make spaceflight affordable to everyone.

Have you ever wanted to live in space? To see the majesty of Earth from orbit, to play in a zero-gravity wonderland, and be on the cutting edge of civilization? Such a place may be built sooner than you think. New scientific research, new technological developments, and new social trends are all combining to make settlements in space easier than ever to build. Not long ago Al Globus, a space settlement expert and software engineering contractor at NASA Ames Research Center, made two key scientific discoveries: - that equatorial low earth orbit (ELEO) has vastly lower radiation than most other places in space, - and that humans can adapt to rotating space structures faster than many people thought possible. These discoveries, combined with a fast-developing rocket industry and burgeoning financial and political support for space development, mean that humanity may be on the brink of a building boom in orbit. In a few decades space settlements could vastly improve life on Earth by developing new technologies, unlocking trillions of dollars of raw materials and energy in space, and opening up a new frontier for all humankind. In this fast-paced book learn how your future in space is closer than you think!

An all-new Star Trek movie-era adventure featuring James T. Kirk! Investigating the massacre of a telepathic minority, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise confront a terrifying new threat: faceless, armored hunters whose extradimensional technology makes them seemingly unstoppable. Kirk must team with the powerful telepath Miranda Jones and the enigmatic Medusans to take on these merciless killers in an epic battle that will reveal the true faces of both enemy and ally!

From the early days of hot air ballooning to supersonic aircraft, High Frontier chronicles the history of flight in Pennsylvania. Early experimentation with lighter-than-air craft in the nineteenth century was followed by significant advances in aerodynamics, the advent of the airplane, and its gradual acceptance by the public. The state had its own contingent of inventors and aviators, who flew and crashed their homemade machines in countless exhibitions. After World War I commercial flights took wing, including government airmail delivery, and expanded airports, federal and state regulation of aeronautics laid the groundwork for the growth of the industry.

This paper examines how the exploration of space has affected life on earth. Examined are milestones in space, war or peace in space, learning about earth from space, the satellite communications revolution, space industrialization, and the ownership of space. The real beginning of the Space Age was the October 1957 Soviet launch of a 184-pound satellite into orbit. The United States put an object into orbit in January 1958. The Soviet Union has taken an important lead in internationalizing access to space by sending Cuban, East European, French, and Mongolian cosmonauts into space. The current projects of the U.S. and Soviet programs--the space shuttle and the space station--are perfect complements. The superpowers have begun a race for the first time to place weapons of destruction in orbit. Space militarization is being aggressively promoted by both countries. The most valuable contribution space activities have made is the information they have provided about the universe and about the earth. For example, scientists are learning how the atmosphere, oceans, sunlight, and life forms interact to make the planet habitable and how human actions are altering those systems. The biggest scientific advances have been in astronomy and related sciences. As a result of the satellite communications revolution, satellite TV broadcasts are bringing cultural interactions that for the first time begin to match the scale of the world's economical and political interdependencies. Disputes regarding the ownership of space are beginning to emerge. (RM)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A riveting, adrenaline-fueled tour of a vast, lawless, and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways—drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil, and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposé, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching.