Bøger af Patrick Stakem

The story of the Saturn rocket is the story of rocket development, started in Germany, and lasting through World War-II. The story of the Saturn-V moon rocket starts with the V-2 missile development and continues through the Redstone, Jupiter, and the Saturn-1 rockets. This was the work of the von Braun Team at the Army's Redstone Arsenal, later, Marshall Space flight Center, in Huntsville, AL. The three Saturn-1/Pegasus missions of 1965 provided critical information about the near-Earth micrometeorite environment, and confirmed the feasibility of the lunar missions. The missions also validated flight procedures and hardware. The Apollo test flights involved many of the NASA facilities, including Launch CompleX-37 at Cape Canaveral, Marshall, Goddard, and the Manned Space Center in Houston, as well as the world-wide network of tracking stations and ships. Chrysler Corporation built the Saturn-I boosters, to a NASA design. IBM built the flight computers. Fairchild built the massive Pegasus payload, with its expanding wings covered with sensors. In 1965, three of the Pegasus satellites relayed the vital data to NASA Earth stations concerning the micrometeoroid environment that the Apollo spacecraft and the astronauts would have to face. The Pegasus missions also carried boilerplate Apollo spacecraft for test purposes. The vehicle weighed over 1.1 million pounds at liftoff, and The massive first stage dropped into the Atlantic after its work was done. NASA carefully calculated the probability of the stage hitting the African land mass, and causing casualties. The Pegasus mission were a major engineering and scientific success

This book discusses the exploration of Asteroid. This is very difficult, because of the millions of diverse targets to visit. The sizes range from dust particles to the dwarf planet Ceres. The area of the asteroid belt was searched by astronomers in the 18the century, based on the lack of a planet at a predicted orbit by the Titus Bode Law. Before the 1890's, astronomy depended on human observation through the telescope, and this was difficult with small objects, as compared to planets. In 1891, astro-photography began producing better results. This book will provide an overview and description of asteroid missions. It will then suggest the right approach to exploring the asteroid belt is with a large swarm of small spacecraft.

This book discusses the topic of Graphics Processing Units, which are specialized units found in most modern computer architectures. Although we can do operations of graphics data in regular arithmetic logic units (ALU's), the hardware approach is much faster, Just like for floating pount arithmetic, specialized units speed up the process. We will discuss the applications for GPU's, the data format, and the operations they perform. These specialized units are the backbone to video, and to a large extent audio processing in modern computer architectures. The GPU is a specialized computer architecture, focused on image data manipulation for graphics displays and picture processing. It has applications far that. The normal ALU, Arithmetic-Logic Unit, in a computer does the four basic math operations, and logical operations on integers. These integers are usually 32 or 64 bits at this time. The GPU greatly enhances the spped of 3D graphics. GPU's find application in arcade machines, games consoles, pc's, tablets, phones, car dashboards, tv's and entertainment systems. First, we'll look at the CPU, and the operations it performs on data. The CPU is fairly flexible on what it does, because of software. You can implement a GPU in software, but it won't be very fast. There's a similar co-processor, the floating point unit (FPU) that operates on specially formatted data. You can implement the floating point unit in software, actually, you can probably download the library, but it won't be as fast as using a dedicated piece of hardware. We'll first discuss integer data format, and operations on those data. The "L" part of ALU says we can also do logical (not math) operations on data. GPU's can process integer and floating point data much faster than a cpu, if it is presented in the right format. They don't have all the general purpose features of ALU's, but they can contain 100 cores or more. This has lead to the employment of large numbers of GPU's as the basis for the current generation of Supercomputers.

The book is about an energy technology solution called Powerships, and some of the alternate solutions they provide. There is a healthy growing industry in this field, with established and trusted suppliers. More than 60 such ships have been deployed around the world so far. They don't provide a long term solution, but are ideal in the short term, to assist in addressing peak loads, and to support infrastructure while ground-based plants are built. In natural disasters, they can support the grid while extensive repairs are made.

This book is an overview of the Civil War ironclads that changed Naval Warfare forever. It focuses mainly on those ships designed and deployed on inland rivers. The day of the wooden ship, even updated with steam engines to replace sails, was coming to an end. The heavier cannon was prevailing over sturdy oak timbers. Offense was surging ahead of defense. Even in the Revolutionary war, wooden ships fell to hot-shot, cannon balls heated to red heat in a furnace. Steam, iron, and firepower were the new parameters of naval warfare. Another topic is that of Union and Confederate submarines. The most popular sub was the CSS Hunley, which sank a Union warship, but never returned to base. In fact, the North and the South produced and deployed dozens of different submarine designs. In addition, the adaption of observation balloon's on floating platforms is covered, as well as the Navy's first hospital ship. There is a section at the end of this book showing where to see some of the surviving equipment.

The ARM processor has come a long way from an obscure British microprocessor of the 1980's to being the dominant basis for the current generation of smart phones, and tablet computers, as well as its use in space. There are already several rad-hard Arduino architectures available, and a rad-hard Pi coming along in a few years. An exciting approach would be to build a rad-hard cluster computer, using the Beowulf software. Actually, this was done and is still operating in Earth orbit. As H-P says aboout its supercomputer on the International Space Station, "...bring the computer to the data."

This book covers the topic of On-orbit repair and servicing of spacecraft. Putting a communications satellite in synchronous orbit will set you back 100's of millions of dollars. Once on orbit, you hope it survived the launch environment, and operates correctly. And, you further hope it works at least for its design lifetime, and as long as possible. This approach, based on good engineering design practices, lessons learned, and hope, it the equivalent of buying a new S-class Mercedes with a sealed gas tank, and driving it until it stops. Then buying a new one.We will discuss the history and the technology of on-orbit servicing, and the projects currently being conducted. We'll take a look at ambitious planned projects, and the enabling technologies that will make them a success. We'll speculate what this means to missions to other planets in our solar system, and the challenges to manned expeditions to follow the robotic ones. By developing a Orbital Servicing Infrastructure, we could extend the life of very expensive resources, and clean up some of the orbital clutter that is endangering current and future space assets. IOn addition, we can derive a stong business case for on-orbit repair.

This book is about the topic of Mobile Cloud Robotics. Cloud Robotics emerged in 2010. This leverages the fusion of multiple technologies, such as the Internet of Things, mobile robotic platforms, Multicore Graphics Processing Units, and the Cloud platform. The Cloud concept involves virtualizing the compute element, as we'll explain in detail later. Mostly, we will focus on mobile robots, as opposed to robotic assembly, and warehousing. At the heart of the problem is a computation-communication-power usage trade-off. We will look at the integration of these topics, with a roadmap and a defined architecture. The Cloud-supplied services augment the more limited computation resources embedded in the mobile robot. It provides services on demand. These services can be related to data storage, downloading code, or computation. This allows a relatively simple and constrained architecture to have vastly greater resources. We will extend this concept. We can build a swarm of robotic platforms, not necessarily homogeneous, that can self-organize into a cluster computer, using, for example, the Open Source Beowulf software from NASA. There is no reason the Cloud server has to be static, it can be a member of the swarm. The swarm members will share an architecture, differing only in their sensor payload (This is one usage model). The Swarm mothership can host the cloud, wherever the swarm happens to be. I use the term "mothership" here to indicate that the robot platforms are deployed from (and possibly retrieved by) the mothership. The mothership is a supernode, as members of the group or swarm are nodes. With the current generation of GPU-based supercomputer architectures, the mothership can certainly be a Cloud host. It shares the problems of power usage, and communication with members of the swarm. Depending on the operational environment, these issues can be addressed. The more real-time operations have to be handled locally, onboard the various members, due to communications delays. Up front, at the architecture level, the load balancing must be considered in a trade-off with communications and power usage. The mobile platform must always be able to meet the goals, even if a bit late. In some real-time scenarios, late means wrong.

Export of the cotton to England and France was a major money-maker for plantation owners. Cotton Milling started in Maryland in the 18th century, using Southern cotton, and continued into the 20th century. The technology for automating the process was developed in England, and perfected in New England. Industrialization was not well developed in the South, but the region was good for cotton growth.Savage Mill is a facility along the North bank of the little Patuxent River, in the Town of the same name. It was a working mill from 1822 to 1947. There was adequate water power most of the year, and the area was used for water-powered mills since the middle of the 18th Century. Savage Mill operated from 1811 through 1929.The original facility included the mill, 500 acres of land, a warehouse, a flour mill, saw mill, and later, an iron furnace and forge. The Town that built up around the Mill was mostly company housing, and it was named after the man who bankrolled the project, John Savage of Philadelphia. The Savage operation was not just a cotton mill sited near abundant water power. The facility had to produce it's own parts and machinery, so it included an iron furnace, and shops for producing parts and machinery. These products were also sold to other Mill operators. The shops also produced machinery for the U. S. Government's Harper's Ferry Arsenal. Being rather remote, the facility produced whatever it needed from local raw materials. In 1846, The Savage Manufacturing Company sold looms and steam power engines for the Powhatan Cotton Factory in Baltimore.

MARC is the Maryland Rail Commuter service, operating in the Baltimore/Washington area. MARC began operating in 1974. MARC trains are operated by Amtrak on the Penn Line, and CSX Transportation on the Camden and Brunswick Lines under contract to the Mass Transit Administration (MTA) of the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT). The MTA acquired control of MARC, Maryland's commuter rail system, under legislation by the Maryland General Assembly in 1992. MARC had been providing service throughout the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area for 18 years at that time. The Maryland Department of Transportation has broader responsibilities than commuter rail; it oversees bus and subway systems, roads, airports, and the Port of Baltimore. Besides giving the history of MARC and the details of its stations and equipment, this book is designed as a ride-along guide that you can take with you, whether on your daily commute, or using the MARC rail to explore sections of the great cities it serves. The stations are presented in alphabetical order for easy access. A bit of history and information on the surroundings are given for each station. For those who are interested in the motive power and rolling stock, a brief description of the locomotives and rolling stock is given. A bibliography is included. The latest edition has additional information on the pending "Purple Line" of street cars, and its connections with MARC, as well as information on the planned MagLev system.

This book covers an overview topic of what is popularly referred to as Rocket Science, seen as a daunting topic, but not completely incomprehensible. This is targeted to the non-specialist. I am not a rocket scientist, but I know a lot of them. I are a Rocket Engineer. I'll explain the difference later.The popular impression of "rocket science" as well as astrophysics is they are topics too complex for the lay-person. Well, if you want to work in the field, you will require a lot of physics, math and engineering at the graduate level. If you just want to understand and appreciate the topic, it's not that bad. This book could be used in a STEM Program, but it is not targeted to that exclusively. The author does have a book published on Cubesats in the STEM curriculum.

This book discusses the application of Cubesat Clusters, Constellations, and Swarms in the exploration of the solar systems. This includes the Sun, the 8 primary planets and Pluto, many moon, the asteroid belt, comets, the ring systems of the four gas giants, and comets. There is a lot to explore. U.S. Spacecraft have been to all of the planets in the solar system. Although the planets (and Pluto) have been visited by spacecraft, Earth's moon has been somewhat explored, and many of the other planets' moons have been imaged, there is a lot of "filling in the blanks" to be done. Here we explore the application of groups of small independent spacecraft to take on this role. Some of the enabling technology for cooperating swarms is examined. Missions to Mars and beyond are lengthy and expensive. We need to ensure that we are delivering payloads that will function and return new data. The tradeoff is between one or two large traditional spacecraft, and a new concept, a large number of nearly identical small spacecraft, operating cooperatively. Necessarily, the Technology Readiness Level of this approach must be proven in Earth orbit, before the resources are allocated to extend this approach to distant locations. Decades of time, and hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. The big picture is, Cubesats are not just secondary payloads anymore, They may be small, but a lot of them together can accomplish a lot. We'll discuss the technologies to make this happen.

This book covers the topic of Cubesat control centers. We'll take a look at the historical development of satellite control centers, and explain how new technology has vastly simplified the approach. The book will suggest several open source options, not only for the control center, but for the entire ground segment. We'll disucss the various functions that a Cubesat Control Center does, and where to find software packages to implement those functions. As technology advances, we have a better basis for Cubesat control centers, as well as cheaper yet more capable hardware, and better and more available software. With the proliferation of inexpensive Cubesat projects, colleges and universities, high school, and even individuals are getting their Cubesats launched. They all need control centers. For lower cost missions, these can be shared facilities. Communicating with and operating a spacecraft in orbit or on another planet is challenging, but is an extension of operating any remote system. We have communications and bandwidth issues, speed-of-light communication limitations, and complexity. Remote debugging is a always a challenge. The satellite control center is part of what is termed the Ground Segment, which also includes the communication uplink and downlink. The control center generates uplink data (commands) to the spacecraft, and receives, processes, and archives downlink (telemetry) data. The spacecraft is usually referred to as the space segment. The spacecraft usually consists of a "bus", the engineering section, and the payload, either a science instrument package or a communications package. Satellite busses can be "off-the-shelf," leading to economies of scale.The concept of the "Contropl Center as a Service" will be introduced, showing how the control center function can be implemented in the cloud. Issues of control center security will be discussed.

This book covers the topic of the technology and applications of Embedded Graphics Processing Units. We first discuss what a graphics processing unit is, and how they have taken over the high performance computing market. We take a look at massively parallel microprocessor-based systems, an evolution from parallel mainframes, and see how this is applied to GPU's. Then, we take a look at embedded processors, derived from CPU's, and how multicore architectures are applied. We can then see how all of this practice was rapidly applied to GPU's.A major topic is the software to program and debug these unit, which are capable of Tera-mistakes per second. We will explore some of the commercial products, and applications. Fasten your seatbelt - it's that kind of a technology

This book covers the topic of Orbital debris, what it is, wher it comes from, what problems it introduces, and how to deal with it. . Putting a communications satellite in synchronous orbit will set you back 100's of millions of dollars. Once on orbit, you hope it survived the launch environment, and operates correctly. You further hope it works at least for its design lifetime, and as long as possible. This approach, based on good engineering design practices, lessons learned, and hope, it the equivalent of buying a new Tesla with non-rechargable batteries, and driving it until it stops. Then shooting it off towards Mars.

This book documents the development of missile and spacecraft guidance computers from the earliest efforts to the current Space Station and satellite onboard systems. This book developed from the author's presentation at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in 2009 for the Workshop on Flight Software. The second and third editions were expanded with new material and references. The fourth edition updated the material to the state of the art in 2014, with discussions of the latest approaches and architectures, including Orion. More references wee included, and errors were corrected. This sixth edition in 2019, adds new material, and corrects some information. There is coverage of new missions and systems, particularly the emerging Cubesat architecture, and the ISS's spiffy new Supercomputer.

Personal Robots of the 1980's inspired hopes for the future. This was triggered by the R2D2 Robot of the Star War series, itself based on the three service droids of the early Science Fiction movie, Silent Running. At the same time, personal computers were emerging as affordable and easier to use. The excitement and the technology reached a tipping point. Before this time, robotics mainly meant large hydraulic units that manufactured cars. Now it came to mean personal companions. The expectations were limitless. It took, as it always does, longer than we thought. The initial units were termed pc's on pc's - personal computers on push carts by Nolan Bushnell. Robots up to this time built cars on factory assembly lines.Now, people were building them at home, using whatever level of technology was available. Devices succh as the Roomba vacuum cleaner and robotic lawn mowers emerged. But, the miniaturization of the compute elements and the sensors was not there yet. Remotely controlled (tele-robotic) Battlebots fought in arenas. It is far easier to get a working robot put together at home now, with most of the pieces available off the shelf, and inexpensive. Mobility platforms, including flight platforms, small embedded computer such as the Raspberry Pi and Arduino, and a full spectrum of small inexpensive MEMS sensors are widely available. But the pioneering work of at home robot builders made this all possible. It was an exciting time, and its getting better.

This book expands on previous works with new material, and discusses a specific topic of the Industrial Revolution in Western Maryland, the iron-making Industry. Starting around 1837, and ending early in the 20th century, the rich natural resources of the western portion of Maryland were used to produce iron, a necessary building block of the Industrial Revolution. By the 1870's Maryland was 5th in the Nation in iron production, and the facility at Mount Savage had rolled the first iron rail in the United States. The facility at Mount Savage, and the earlier one at Lonaconing were cutting-edge, state-of-the-art high technology research, development, and production centers. Essential Patents were issued. Mount Savage was a who's who of industrialization, invention, and technology vital to the nation. In the end, they missed producing the first true steel in the United States, probably by a few months. There were two major iron manufacturing sites in Western Maryland, both in Allegany County. Lonaconing was the first, and served as a model for the later Mount Savage site. Both were blessed by abundant supplies of raw materials. Both were handicapped by being located in the middle of nowhere. They addressed this issue by building transportation systems involving roads and railroads. Lonaconing was not successful in their timing, but Mount Savage was. By the time the railroad from Lonaconing was built, the furnace was out of production, and coal became the major commodity being shipped. Mount Savage not only built the first iron rails produced in the United States, they built a railroad with their rails to meet the B&O railhead at Cumberland. They went on to sell rail to the B&O so that road didn't have to keep importing it from England. Mount Savage went on to be a manufacturer of locomotives, producing maybe a hundred of their sturdy iron-workhorses. Lonaconing and Mount Savage both lie along Maryland Route 36, some 14 miles apart.

This is a work about the Georges Creek Valley in Allegany County, Western Maryland. The Georges Creek Valley is defined by Dan's Mountain to the east, and Savage Mountain to the West, part of the Appalachian range. Portions of Savage Mountain form the Eastern Continental Divide, separating watersheds draining to the Ohio River and those draining to the Potomac River. The history of the settlement of the Georges Creek Valley is the history of coal. George Washington was familiar with the area from his various trips in the wilderness. Once populated entirely by Native Americans, the region was settled by the English, with families from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.Besides coal, a pioneering iron furnace was built at Lonaconing, which drove the introduction of rail transportation in the region. Where George's Creek meets the Potomac, the C&O Canal was slated to pass by.

In 1755, Fort Cumberland was at the cusp of three empires: the British, the French, and the Iroquois. It was the westernmost outpost of the British Empire in North America. Built at the confluence of Will's Creek and the Potomac by Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland Militia, the fort became untenable after the Braddock defeat, and the western boundary of Empire was pulled back to the safety of Fort Frederick. West of the fort was disputed territory, leading into New France. The Native American peoples wanted both the French and the British to go home. They began to organize into large federations of tribes to better deal with the invaders from across the seas. Fort Cumberland was attached by Indian forces, but relieved. It saw no action in the Revolutionary War, but served as the staging area for troops deployed under Washington in the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania. This book has an extensive set of references to material relevant to the history, construction, and use of Fort Cumberland. It outlines the historical context of the Fort.

This book covers the topic of Manufacturing in Space, and Mining in Space, which is not that far away, and has actually been done on a small scale for many years. With permanent manufacturing facilities in space, near to lunar or asteroid resources, we will be able to fabricate facilities from local material, and extract rocket fuel. All of this can replace what we now need very large rockets up from Earth's "gravity well." We can build the next generation stations and spacecraft in situ, in orbit. There are some major advantages for this. Spin-off company, providing logistics services, will be necessary. Space will be evolving as a frontier outpost. We have experience with those. But, space is a harsh environment, harsher than the Klondike during the gold rush. Yet, the gold rush happened.

This book presents an overview of the ARM history and architecture, from the 1980's legacy Advanced RISC Machine, to today's 64-bit multicore units. The applications for the ARM in embedded systems is presented, as well as arm-based system-on-a chip designs. Software for the ARM is presented mostly JAVA, as are specialized architectures for vector floating point and media processing. The Thumb, NEON, and Jazelle extensions are discussed. The applications of the ARM architecture onboard spacecraft is explored, with a brief introduction to unique challenges of the space environment. Vector floating point and multicore instantiations of SIMD are covered. System simulation and debugging are discussed. Arm has proven to be a popular architecture for inexpensive Cubesats. Yearly, billions of the ARM chips are sold. They are present in computer tablets, set-top boxes, phones, automobiles, airplanes, locomotives, routers, household appliances, medical devices - every electronic device imaginable. Understanding of the ARM architecture is critical to understand today's electronic ecosystem. Appendices present selected computer architecture topics such as I/O, floating point, cache, and the fetch/execute cycle in some depth. An extensive glossary and bibliography are included.

Unfortunately, we learn more from failures than from successes. This book continues an examination of a cross-section of engineering failures, and analyzes them to define the lessons-learned. It also presents some additional methodologies to prevent failures, or, at least, minimize the effects. The first volume presented a cross-section of failure studies, mostly drawn from the engineering and aerospace context. Each study includes specific references and a definition of the root cause of the failure. I said, "Let's try to learn from other's mistakes. It is less painful to learn from others' failures than your own." So, almost nobody listened, and I have enough material for a new book. We will see continuing errors of omission, errors of commission, and just plain ignorance of the facts. Since its publication, I have had more than enough material for a second book. The first book discussed System Engineering processes and procedures that can and should be applied to an architecture before the fact, and, unfortunately, after the fact as a post-mortem analysis. It is important to do a good post-mortem analysis of failures, and document them, for the benefit of the next generation of implementers. This helps to prevent the repeating of mistakes. And yet, we keep repeating mistakes, not building on our work, and going on to create larger, more creative mistakes. I will try to minimize the overlap in the books, but some times there is further information or corrections on material in Volume 1. A major new area of interest is self-driving cars, not just their technology, but the insurance and legal issues they introduce. I am presenting this from an engineering standpoint, because that is my background. But the concepts apply across all disciplines and endeavors. If your are responsible for a design, a device, a policy, or a program, you must think through the consequences. Always have a plan B. Always have a Plan C Always think about safety and security. Don't make the same mistake twice. Don't make a second mistake. I have included an updated glossary and a list of reference material at the end of the book, and specific references for the failure cases discussed.

This book surveys the history and architecture of 8-bit microprocessors. We actually start with 4-bit microprocessors, look at a strange 1-bit processor, and look at 8-bit, then 12 bit micros. The 16-bit processors will be the subject of another book. Eight bit processors are still manufactured and used. This book is not an exhaustive view of the field, but the major players are covered. There is a review of computer architecture, binary math, and digital logic that can be skipped. The evolution of the 8-bit processors is a history of the advance of semiconductor technology from the first transistors, to the breakthrough of multiple transistors on a chip, the integrated circuit. A lot of this happened when the "Silicon Valley" of northern California was mostly known for its citrus crops. The tools that made all this happen were large mainframe computers with vacuum tube technology, punched card input, and memory drums with the staggering capacity of a thousand words. The growth of the integrated circuit shows what Gordon Moore observed was an exponential growth law: the complexity increased about every 18 months. Naturally, this growth rate is not sustainable forever. But, in the age of multi-core 64 bit microprocessor systems on a chip, so far, so good.Modern computers started out using relays and vacuum tubes, switching to mechanical relays for switching elements. The semiconductor revolution provided diodes for logic functions, and transistors for switching. As the technology allowed for putting multiple transistors and other elements on a single substrate, the integrated circuit began to be widely used. The complexity of the devices increased according to an exponential growth law, the technology feeding upon itself. This allowed for functions such as an arithmetic-logic unit to occupy one chip. Then, at around 4,000 transistors capacity, an entire 4-bit cpu that executed instructions. Not much later came the 8-bit cpu. Memory and I/O functions also benefited from the increasingly complex solid state-electronics.glossary, bibliography, and pictures are included.The author built an Intel 8080-based Altair 8800 computer in 1975. He went to the Big Computer Faire in Atlantic City, and saw two guys, both named Steve, from California, with a wooden-cased project that probably wasn't going to go anywhere commercially. His Aerospace career has revolved around support for space-based microprocessors and computers for NASA since 1971.Mr. Stakem received a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and masters in Physics and Computer Science from the Johns Hopkins University. He has followed a career as a NASA support contractor, working at every NASA Site. He is associated with the Graduate Computer Science Department at Loyola University in Maryland, and the Whiting School of Engineering of the Johns Hopkins UniversityAnother book by the author discusses 16-bit microporcessors.

This book traces the history and technology of several Irons works in pre-colonial Maryalnd, and pre-civil war southwestern Pennsylavania. I starting with the Colony of Maryland, in Anne Arrundel Maryland, with various immigrants from Wales who recognized iron ore, and knew how to process it. England was excited to get iron ore, but was not enthusiastic about the colonists making products from it locally. Whey, they might actuallu make cannon!Iron production was a profitable industry in the colonies, and one family in particular, the Snowdens, thrived in this endeavor.

This book covers the topics of the existence of planets around others stars, that could possible harbor life. In addition, it covers the search for extraterrestial life in our own solar system. We only have to find life other than ours once, and the door is open. We think now we are unique in the Universe., but the Universe is very large. We still find strange life forms on Earth, like the extremeofils deep under the sea, feeding off volcanic vents. We're not looking hard enough, and can't see far enough to write off the possibility of alternate life in the Universe. One of the more exciting missions is the search for planets of other stars than our own sun. Although there are nearly impossible to image directly, they can be observed as the pass through our line of sight with the distant star, and cause a small dip in the perceived brightness. Exo-planets are best seen from space.

The book covers the topic of Embedded Computers for Spacecraft. We need to define and explore some terms, starting with "embedded computer." We'll look at its cpu, memory, and I/O. The Space environment is harsh, and hard on computer components. We'll review these effects, and see what additional requirements they place upon the system.Just as embedded computers are special cases of computers in general, then space flight embedded computers are a special case of embedded. They are embedded computers which operate in a challenging environment. I make the assumption you know a bit of computer architecture, how instructions are executed, and how how cache works. If not, get a good book or two on computer architecture. There's some in the references. That's our starting point.The flight software, both operating systems and application will be explored. In Space, software is the ideal component. It doesn't weigh anything, doesn't need gravity or air. The environment the embedded system is operating in has a major impact on its design and implementation. The unit may be in Earth orbit, in orbit around another planet, on the surface of another planet, or traversing the solar system. Each of these environments is hostile to equipment, and each is different. Closer to the Sun means hotter, and more radiation. Farther away means less solar power. The large distances involved force slower bandwidth communication, and requires different protocols. In many cases, for long periods of time, spacecraft cannot communicate with Earth-based stations. Spacecraft embedded systems are a special class of embedded. Embedded computers are in just about anything we touch on a daily basis, our cars, our mobile phones and entertainment devices, most of our appliances, traffic light controllers - the list is nearly endless. The earliest satellites did not have computers at all, but the technology quickly evolved to have special purpose-built units. Later, commercial microprocessors were employed, and many failed due to the radiation environment. Now, the latest technologies we use on Earth, multicore, graphics engines, non-volatile magnetic storage, FPGA's, are used in spacecraft electronics. The spacecraft have become networks of computers, or, nodes on a network of space assets.

Located near Frostburg on either side of the National Road, the sleepy village of Eckhart Mines was once a bustling industrial center of mining and railroad activity. Coal was discovered in Eckhart around 1814, during the construction of the National Road. This was convenient, as the coal could be moved to Cumberland by wagon, and floated down the Potomac River, when conditions permitted. The coal from Eckhart started the Maryland coal trade, in 1843.The Maryline Mining Company built the Eckhart Branch Railroad in 1845 to allow the coal from their mines to reach Cumberland, where the B&O Railroad was located, and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal was heading. The railroad survived independently until 1870, when it became the Eckhart Branch of the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad.The Author's Grandfather worked on the line as a locomotive engineer.This book covers the Company's and the Movers & Shakers who made the business work. It discusses in detail the equipment and facilitys of the early short line railroad, and its contribution to the B&O. The mines are discussed, as well as a major feat of engineering, the Hoffman Drainage Tunnel, which lowered the water in the mines, and allowed additional coal to be extracted.An extensive bibliography is included.

We are on the cusp of a new great era of exploration, of the most important planet we know. This book introduces and formalizes the topic of using increasingly capable robotic explorers for our home planet. We have long used robotic spacecraft to explore space, the moon, the other planets of our solar system, and their moons. At least one of our spacecraft, Voyager, has left the solar system, and is still returning data on interstellar space. Unmanned explorers precede human ventures into space, and have been to many more distant locations than we have. We can use long operational time platforms such as aerostats, flying drones, underwater drones and such for exploration of the remote reaches of our home. Even now, drones are being deployed into hurricanes. Multiple cooperating systems, non-homogeneous, are enabled by advances in communication, computation, and smart sensors. Software advances in clustering and swarm behavior enable the deployment of autonomous systems. It is an exciting time. Our own planet has been extensively but not exhaustively explored by humans, from the depths of the sea to the highest layers of the atmosphere, and to the "four corners" of the Earth. Now, with the emergence and maturation of advanced robotic technology and "big data" techniques, we can do more. It is increasingly valuable to collect, store, and manage massive databases of information on our own planet. These data can be used to develop and refine models of our environment and ecosystem, which may be critical to our survival.

There have been spacefarers from over 40 countries, taken along on shared missions by the craft of the major spacefaring nations, China, Russia, and the U. S. The International Space Station is truly an International effort. But these were all professional Astronauts or Cosmonnauts. That was their job.At this time, there have been seven "space toruists," who paid their own way, and five "spaceflgiht participants," who flew on the Shuttle, or to the ISS. Can you fly to space now? The U.S. currently doesn't have a crewed transportation system.The Russians will charge you $76 million for a flight up on the Soyuz-M, if they have a seat available. You also receive training, and a couple of rides on the Vomit-Comet airplane, so you'll know what to expect in zero G. The Space Tourism Industry is ready to begin. Like all new markets, it will evolve, become better and cheaper. It's expensive now, but a few have done it.NASA is not going to do this. They are in the science and technology business, and are a government agency, A cadre of entrepreneurs, space geeks, and crafty businessmen have better, less expensive options in the works. Stay tuned. Keep in touch. This is going to get exciting. The book discusses options ranging from a quick trip above 100 km to earn the title "astronaut." to month long vacations at a lunar resort, where you can fly, with wings, every day. This is the new hospitality frontier.