NOVA | Space & Flight

Giant Telescopes of Tomorrow Immense optical and radio telescopes now in the works promise to make astonishing discoveries about the cosmos. Watch it online.
Solar Sails NASA engineer Dean Alhorn says that some future spacecraft may be propelled by the sun’s rays. Listen in.
The Risks of Automated Flight Aviation safety expert Bill Voss thinks airlines should change the way they train pilots. Hear the report.

Space & Flight

Historic Space Suits

See classic images from Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo as well as space-suit prototypes that never made the cut.
Better Forecasts for Aircraft

Could new weather forecasting technology make flights over oceans safer?
Lift and Drag

What are lift and drag? And how do they work?
The Founders of Modern Astronomy

The Englishman William Herschel often gets the credit, but his sister Caroline was also a pioneer astronomer.

Cosmos
by Carl Sagan
The Universe in a Nutshell
by Stephen Hawking
Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic History
by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith
Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle
by Michael Benson
Orbit
by Jay Apt
Distant Worlds: Milestones in Planetary Exploration
by Peter Bond
A Passion for Mars: Intrepid Explorers of the Red Planet
by Andrew Chaikin
Are We Alone? The Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life
by Paul Davies
Aviation: The Early Years
by Peter Almond
Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight
by Paul Hoffman
The Wright Brothers and The Invention of the Aerial Age
by Tom D. Crouch and Peter L. Jakab
The Art of Flying
by Robert N. Buck

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