This excellent book by Dr Gregory Matloff could be viewed as a large multi disciplinary compendium of past research, current investigations and future research in astronautics. However, unlike conventional works that are usually closed, this book is an open guide in three main respects: it contains progressive exercises as the chapter and section topics evolve, it provides the reader with many updated references, and it clearly indicates projected research areas that could become current research in the near future. For a student, the included exercises could be transformed into small worksheets or notebooks featuring many modern symbolic or algebraic computation systems that run on desktop or laptop computers. Thus, rapid and progressive study is possible - a sort of learning library driven by the author and by the bibliography at the end of each chapter. More than 340 references for both professionals and students have been selected to provide the reader with a sound basis for expanding his or her knowledge of the many different subjects dealt with authoritatively by the author, who for several decades has worked actively in various fields of astronautics. A systematic and unhurried study of this book will produce for the reader an extraordinarily enlarged number-based view of spaceflight and its significant impact on our future global society.weiterlesen