Sh Maran

The IAU Colloquium No. 59, "The effects of mass loss on Stellar Evolution" was held on September 15-19, 1980 at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Miramare, Trieste (Italy), under the auspices of the IAU Executive Co~ mittee and the Italian National Council of Research. The planning of this conference began two years ago du ring the IAU Symposium No. 83 "Mass loss and evolution of 0 type stars" (Qualicum Beach, Victoria, Canada) when we felt that mass loss and its effects on the evolution of stars was too broad a subject for being confined to 0 type stars only. Therefore we thought that a conference dealing with the general problem of mass loss across the whole HR diagram would have been of interest to all people working in the field. The main idea was that bringing together Astronomers and Astrophysicists of the widest range of interests and e~ pertize - all in some way related to the problem of mass loss from stars - would have spurred thorough discussions on the many aspects and implications of this topic. We hope this goal has been achieved. Furthermore, the most recent observational and theoreti cal developments on the problem of mass loss from early ty pe stars avoided this meeting to be a simple updating of the Qualicum Beach Symposium as far as this issue is concerned.

A meeting on "Astrophysics. from Spacelab" was held at the Internatio nal Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, in the Autumn of 1976. Scope of the meeting was to bring to the attention of an increasing number of physi cists and astrophysicists, including scientists from developing countries, the new facil ities made available by the combination of the Shuttle and the Spacelab programmes. This book starts from that meeting and includes, together with reports presented in Trieste, duly updated, a few additional reviews on selected to pi cs. In the first part, D.J. Shapland and G. Giampalmo (liThe Shuttle and the Spacelab") present the design and the programmatic data of these advanced transportation systems and orbital laboratories. Vittorio Manno introduces the scientific programmes coordinated and led to execution by the European Space Agency ("ESA Programmes in Astronomy and Astrophys i cs "). J.D. Rosendha 1 (liThe NASA Programmes in Astronomy and Astrophysics") summarizes the activi ties in solar physics, high-energy astrophysics and astronomy planned in the United States of America by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as well as the expected use of the space shuttle and spacelab in their first year of operation

As in the days following Skylab, solar physics came to the end of an era when the So lar Maximum Mission re-entered the earth's atmosphere in December 1989. The 1980s had been a pioneering decade not only in space- and ground-based studies of the solar atmosphere (Solar Maximum Mission, Hinotori, VLA, Big Bear, Nanc;ay, etc.) but also in solar-terrestrial relations (ISEE, AMPTE), and solar interior neutrino and helioseismol ogy studies. The pace of development in related areas of theory (nuclear, atomic, MHD, beam-plasma) has been equally impressive. All of these raised tantalizing further questions about the structure and dynamics of the Sun as the prototypical and best observed star. This Advanced Study Institute was timed at a pivotal point between that decade and the realisation of Yohkoh, Ulysses, SOHO, GRANAT, Coronas, and new ground-based optical facilities such as LEST and GONG, so as to teach and inspire the up and coming young solar researchers of the 1990s. The topics, lecturers, and students were all chosen with this goal in mind, and the result seems to have been highly successful by all reports.