Specific Impulse

Specific Impulse is a Clarion Book of the Year Award Finalist. Great energy a fun and engaging read! DR. BONNIE DUNBAR, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT AND CEO OF SEATTLE MUSEUM OF FLIGHT Space scientist Carin Gonzales and former submarine commander Jake Sabio are two strangers drifting separately through life when a thunderous explosion above the giant Barringer Meteor Crater inexplicably brings them together, transforming both in unpredictable ways. Now able to see and smell more precisely and move in ways that are clearly impossible, Gonzales and Sabio soon realize that these kinds of life-changing alterations do not come without a price. Worse yet, they soon notice that others who witnessed the explosion are now dead from a seemingly incurable infection. The CDC wants nothing more than to lock them up in a lab for study. Special Agent Will Greenfield wants them for questioning. Contract killer Antonio Crubari would be happy if they would just hurry up and die, but he is willing to speed up the process if need be. Time is running out for Gonzales and Sabio. But even as they struggle to survive and find a cure for the deadly infection, they uncover a secret of monumental proportions that changes everythingincluding the future.

Solar sailing - using the sun as a propellant - offers the possibility of low-cost long-distance missions that are impossible with conventional spacecraft. This first comprehensive book on this propulsion method provides a detailed account of solar sailing, at a high technical level, but in a way accessible to the scientifically informed layperson. Solar sail orbital dynamics and solar radiation pressure form the foundations of the book, but the engineering design of solar sails is also considered, along with potential mission applications.