Menu

Introduction

About...

• Travelling in Space
• Ventures in Space
• People in Space
• Spacecraft
• The Solar System
• The Stars

Archives of...

• Concluded Missions
• Defunct Projects
• Space History

Travelling... Into Orbit To the Stars Missions... To the Moon Round the Solar System

Exploring...

• The Moon & Mars
• The Solar System

Settlements...

• In Space
• On Other Worlds

ISS Measures Up to 1950s Magazine Inspiration

By Robert Scott Martin. 15 October 1999. Mainly about how Von Braun and Bonestell came to do those articles for Collier's magazine. At Space.com. ("Nearly half a century ago, Collier's magazine brought a team of scientists and space artists together for a series of now-famous illustrated articles that had an enormous influence on the generation that would help build the International Space Station.")

The Brick Moon and Other Stories (>400K)

By Edward Everett Hale. Many of the webpages on the Space Station make reference to Hale's science fiction tale (published about 1870 in the Atlantic Monthly), so for the curious I've provided a link to an on-line version of an 1899 edition of the work.

Articles, Documents and Essays

International Space Station: Assembly Sequence

At NASA's ISS website.

International Space Station Pics

On an ESA site with pics & artists' impressions of various ESA projects.

International Space Station: Research Plan, An Overview

"Improving life on Earth and in Space". At NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications (OLMSA) website.

Stationed in Space

• Transcript of a broadcast of 25 April 2000 on the US PBS channel. At their website.
• "NARRATOR: ... as soon as NASA engineers began to look closely at Reagan's plan, they realized it would be difficult to achieve at any cost, let alone $8 billion. ... By 1992, NASA had spent the entire $8 billion without building a single piece of hardware.

  "JOHN HODGE: In fact, what happened was most of the $8 billion dollars got spent on people--salaries and expenses."

The Station in Space

By Wendy Graham. Published in FTL, a webzine. A nice overview of the ISS and its mission.

That International Space Thingamajig

• By Irene Brown. 21 November 1997. Naming the ISS. At the Unofficial Space site of Discovery Online.
• "It had a name in an earlier incarnation. President Reagan christened it Freedom, an orbital embodiment of Western values. But the Soviet Union collapsed and Freedom's price became too dear. The bloated program died during a 1993 White House-ordered spring cleaning that spawned three new plans for a station. Alpha, the first design, was selected and for a while that working moniker became the station's name. ... These days, about the only people who still call the station Alpha are the Russians."

Websites

History of the (NASA) Space Station (missing)

Part of the NASA Human Spaceflight Programs History.

International Space Station Homepage

At NASA's Human Spaceflight website.

Space Station Future Fighters Home Page (missing)

Pro ISS site.

Space Station User's Guide

News, schedules, imagery, etc. At the Space Ref site.

Centaur: America's Workhorse in Space

"In 1957, almost one year before Congress created NASA, the Air Force studied an exhaustive proposal from General Dynamics/Astronautics Corp. to develop a new space booster that could give the U.S., in the shortest possible time, a means of orbiting heavy payloads. That vehicle was to become Centaur, a high-energy second stage with a new propulsion system using liquid hydrogen." At NASA's Glenn Research Centre site.

Centaur Fact Sheet (missing)

Centaur High-Energy Upper Stage.

A Cost Comparison of Launch Vehicles (missing)

At the Rocketplane commercial launcher site.

Earth-to-Orbit Transportation Bibliography

By Andrew Nowicki. More than just a bibliography. Also discusses (in varying depths) various (mostly futuristic) launch systems.

The ESA and Space Transport Systems

Ariane 1 thru 5, and a brief look at ESA's (scaled-down) plans for manned space transport.

History of the Phoenix VTOL SSTO and Recent Developments in Single-Stage Launch Systems

By Gary C Hudson. Part of the Space Vehicles page at the Space Future site. From the Proceedings of 4th International Space Conference of Pacific-basin Societies, AAS, November 1991.

Launch Vehicle Design

"In one easy lesson". Part of the Space Vehicles page at the Space Future site.

Rockets versus Planes

Part of the Space Vehicles page at the Space Future site.

A Single-Stage-to-Orbit Thought Experiment

By Gary C Hudson. Part of the Space Vehicles page at the Space Future site.

Upper Stage/Orbital Vehicle Concepts (missing)

Discusses concepts for upper stages and orbital transfer vehicles using expendable, integral, and reusable components. At The US Air Force's XR Developmental Planning Directorate Home Page.

Vehicle Designs

Part of the Space Vehicles page at the Space Future site.

Advent Launch Services & Civilian Astronaut Corps (CAC) (defunct)

CAC-1 (missing)

[Sub-orbital joyrides. CAC-1 carries a pilot & six passengers 70 miles out into spaces. Vertical takeoff. Launched from, and lands on, water. First passenger flight planned for July 1999.]

• Sub-orbital Space Flight Description (missing)
• CAC-1: Rocket & Flight Data (missing)

Bristol Space Planes

["Developing low-risk spaceplanes to slash the cost of access to space and space tourism."]

Ascender

"...designed to be the first sub-orbital aeroplane since the X-15, and the first ever to carry passengers to space."

Ascender

At the Space Adventures site.

Spacebus

An "enlarged and mature development of Spacecab". Main use: "for transporting tourists and supplies to and from space hotels. It would also be used for launching medium satellites, and as a general purpose launch vehicle."

Spacecab

A "fully reusable spaceplane designed to use only existing technology." In effect "an enlarged and refined Ascender, air launched from a carrier aeroplane like a much simplified Concorde."

HMX & Rotary Rocket Company

Roton

[Proposed design for a single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO), reusable launch vehicle. Orbital helicopter: a launch vehicle with tip-mounted rockets driving a helicopter rotor. (Currently facing problems & may fold.)]

Kelly Space Technology

Kelly Astroliner Launch Vehicle

[The Astroliner is an airliner-like winged 2-stage vehicle which takes off towed behind another plane like a glider to save fuel, thereby starting at high altitude with full propellant tanks.]

Eclipse Astroliner

At the Space Adventures site.

Kistler Aerospace Corporation

K-1

[The K-1: a two-stage "fully reusable aerospace vehicle".]

Kistler Aerospace K-1 Reusable Launch System

At the old Aerojet site.

K-1 Flight Profile

At the Kistler Aerospace site.

K-1 Vehicle Payload Users Guide (123K)

Dated May 1999. At the Kistler Aerospace site. (Also available in PDF format.)

Marshall Space Flight Centre (NASA)

X-33

["The X-33 is a technology demonstrator for NASA's 'next-generation' of space launch vehicles": the Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV).]

Rocketdyne X-33/RLV Home

How the aerospike rocket engine works, the VentureStar engine, etc. At Boeing's site.

VentureStar

The X-33 History Project

"The X-33 history project is documenting the development of the complex X-33 program from its beginnings to the completion of flight testing."

X-33 Homepage

X-34

["This vehicle is the bridge between the Clipper Graham (DC-XA) and the X-33."]

X-34 Fact Sheet

Pathfinder Program: X-34 and X-37--Space Transportation

Specs, flight profiles, quicktime movies, and other goodies.

National Aerospace Lab & NASDA (Japan)

HOPE

[H-II Orbiting Plane. Unmanned winged space vehicle launched by an H-II rocket.]

Hope

The World Space Guide's entry.

Launch Vehicles: Hope-X

A test vehicle for the HOPE.

Pioneer Rocketplane

Black Horse

[Proposed design for a reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) craft using an in-air refuelling launch vehicle. Originally conceived as military vehicle for the USAF.]

Pathfinder

[An airliner-like "transatmospheric vehicle" that will enable "inexpensive launch of satellites, global same-day package delivery, etc."]

Pathfinder

At the Space Adventures site.

Reaction Engines Ltd

Skylon

[An unpiloted reusable aircraft-like cargo vehicle for transporting loads to earth orbit. A successor to HOTOL.]

Reaction Engines: Project Skylon

Possibly a mirror of the site below, though the two sites are not identical.

The Skylon Project

Space Tour (defunct)

Space Van (missing)

[A vehicle carrying cargo or 16 passengers (plus pilot, copilot, & attendant) to a 40-degree low Earth Orbit. Uses a re-usable booster to assist it reaching orbit. A list of potential uses (not counting servicing the proposed orbiting hotel) is here.]

Star Booster

Star Booster: A Commercial Solution To Cost Effective And Versatile Reusable Space Transportation (missing)

By Buzz Aldrin and Ron Jones. Appeared in Ad Astra, May/June 1997.

US Air Force

EELV Homepage

"Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle."

Vela Technology Development

Space Cruiser System

[A "piloted, passenger carrying, sub-orbital, fully recoverable, fully reusable, 2-stage, aerospace launch system operating from, and returning and landing at, a commercial airport."]

Vela Space Cruiser

At the Space Adventures site.

Meeting at Mir: US, Russia to Link in Space

By James Oberg. A brief rundown of the plans for Mir from an early 1995 perspective. In the February 1995 online edition of IEEE's The Institute, the news supplement to IEEE Spectrum.

Mir Space Station

Current news, history, research, etc.

The NASA Shuttle-Mir Web

"Between March 1995 and May 1998, the Russian Space Station Mir hosts a series of NASA astronauts as crewmembers. The NASA program supporting this endeavor is commonly known as International Space Station Phase 1."

What is it Like to Live Aboard Mir

Astronaut John Blaha tells Scientific American Frontiers what it was like. Part of SAF's the From Mir to Mars site.

Chinese Manned Missions

China['s] First Manned Mission Delayed Until 2002

By Wei Long. News item (10 July 2000) at the Spacer.com site.

China Prepares for Manned Space Flight

By Hans-Werner Luttmann. On the Flug Revue site.

Chinese Manned Space Program: Behind Closed Doors

By E. P. Grondine. At the Encyclopaedia Astronautica site.

Shenzhou

About China's proposed manned spacecraft. At the Encyclopaedia Astronautica site.

Gravity Probe B (proposed launch: May 1, 2002)

[A physics experiment. Intended to test certain aspects (such as "frame-dragging") of general relativity. NASA/Stanford Uni.]

Einstein was Right...Again!!!

Frame dragging, black holes, and Gravity Probe B. "Frame dragging is one of the last frontiers in relativity." 6 November 1997. News item from NASA's Space Science News site.

Gravity Probe B Home Page

"Testing Einstein with orbiting gyroscopes". Press clips, image library, FAQ, relativity Q & A, and other stuff.

Review of Gravity Probe B

By the Space Studies Board. Background, scientific motivation, and other matters. Dated 1995.

The Waverider Hypersonic Reentry Vehicle

By Richard Osborne and Rick Newlands. In Distant Star, the online magazine of the First Millennial Foundation, February 1997. An "introduction to a class of hypersonic vehicles which has shock wave attachment along the length of the leading edge as its notable feature. This type of vehicle is known as a waverider."

NASA/GSFC Orbital Data Bulletin Board (missing)

Two Line Element (TLE) data and other satellite (including the shuttle) orbital information.

The Wonderful World of Satellites

"A satellite primer." How do satellites work, anatomy of a satellite, how many satellites are up there, etc.

The Challenger Accident

51-L

Details on the last flight of the Challenger. Includes the activities planned for the mission. Part of NASA's KSC Space Shuttle Launches site.

51-L: The Challenger Accident

Dozens of articles, news releases etc on the Challenger accident covering a wide spectrum of issues. A project of the Federation of American Scientists site.

The Challenger Accident (missing)

Taken from Chapters III and IV of "Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident".

Information on STS-51L/Challenger

Links to the mission profile, presidential commission report, bibliography, etc. (Old site..)

Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident

The Rogers Commission report. Currently only parts of the 5 volume report (and those parts come mainly from Volume 1) are online. In plain text (rather than HTML).

The Rogers Commission Report: Highlights

Another copy of this version be found here at the Spacelink site.

Transcript of Challenger Communications, January 28, 1986

A transcript of Challenger's operational recorder voice tape from T -2:05 until the accident. On NASA's history website. (Old site.)

Missions & Schedules

Space Shuttle: Past Shuttle Missions

Includes the Challenger's last flight.

Space Shuttle: Future Shuttle Missions

Extends further (but with less detail) than the Launch Schedule.

Space Shuttle Launches

Everything you want to know about every shuttle mission since 1981. Each mission gets its own page listing the crew, milestones, payload, mission objectives, launch and landing details, daily mission highlights, etc. Future shuttle missions get the same treatment, with the available information listed. At NASA's KSC site.

Space Shuttle Launch Schedule

Brief details on upcoming shuttle launches, with links to more extensive information elsewhere.

Space Shuttle Mission Guides

News, upcoming & previous missions, plus links to items of interest on other shuttle sites around the Net. At the Space Ref site.

Orbiters (see also Shuttle Stack below)

(Material specifically about the orbiters)

Space Shuttle [Orbiter] Drawings and Technical Diagrams

No text, but a wealth of pics and schematics culled from Space Shuttle News Reference. Part of NASA's history site's Technical Diagrams and Drawings page.

Space Shuttle Orbiters

Where are they now, other details. (Want to know where the recovered bits of the Challenger now lie?) Includes details on the mockups, trainers, & related craft involved in, or connected with, the Space Shuttle project. Also links to the KSC pages on individual craft. At the Field Guide to American Spacecraft site.

Space Shuttle: Orbiter Vehicles

Details about NASA's shuttle fleet, including the Challenger and Enterprise. At NASA's KSC site.

Shuttle Stack (see also Orbiters above)

(Material about the shuttle as a whole: ie orbiter + external tank + boosters)

Space Transpotation System: Parts of the Shuttle

Brief overview of the chief elements of the shuttle stack. At NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Centre's Liftoff to Space Exploration site.

Spacelab

Spacelab

The Marshall Spaceflight Centre's Liftoff to Space Exploration site's pages on the reusable laboratory developed by the ESA and designed to be carried in the Space Shuttle's cargo bay to "allow scientists to perform experiments in microgravity conditions while orbiting Earth". Includes Quicktime VR views of the interior.

Websites (main)

Shuttle Online Press Kit

Shuttle mission overviews, payloads, crew members, and other information. Also pages on the Zarya & Zvesta ISS modules, plus an overview of the ISS itself.

Space Shuttle

At NASA's Human Spaceflight site. A number of the resources at this site have been given separate links on these pages.

Space Shuttle

At NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Centre's Liftoff to Space Exploration site. Several of the resources at this site have been given separate links on these pages.

Other Shuttle Essays

History of the Space Shuttle

"The Flights of the Space Shuttle", shuttle launches by vehicle, mission patches, major components, etc. Part of the NASA Human Spaceflight Programs History.

Report of the Space Shuttle Management Independent Review Team

The Kraft Report. February 1995. At the Federation of American Scientists site. ("The space shuttle is recognized throughout the world's technical community as the consummate vehicle for space transportation.")

Space Shuttle Reference Manual

1988 edition. At NASA's KSC site. (Another copy here at NASA's shuttle site.)

Toward a History of the Space Shuttle: An Annotated Bibliography

Compiled by Roger D. Launius and Aaron K. Gillette. 1994. (The NASA History Series: Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 1) (Old site.)

The Problem of Space Travel: The Rocket Motor

By Hermann Noordung (real name: Herman Potocnik). An English translation of his Das Problem der Befahrung des Weltraums. Deals "with a broad range of topics relating to space travel.... What makes the book important in the early literature about space travel is its extensive treatment of the engineering aspects of a space station." (The NASA History Series: NASA SP-4026) (Old site.)

Russian Space Stations (1903 to Present)

Part of the NASA Human Spaceflight Programs History (International Space Station section). No author listed, however David Portree at his site claims this part is based on factsheets which he wrote for NASA Public Affairs.

Space Islands

Home of the Geode project, a "ring [space] station" made up of the shuttle's (discarded) external fuel tanks.

US Space Station History

From 1869, thru Skylab, to plans for the International Space Station.

Visions of the Future (missing)

Brief. From Hale's Brick Moon of 1869, through Noordung's Habitat Wheel of 1928, to the 1975 Space Settlement design study. No author listed, however David Portree at his site claims it is based on factsheets which he wrote for NASA Public Affairs.

Space Elevators, Space Hotels, and Space Tourism

By Nathan Wilson. Describes "a conceptual design for a transportation system which could be built to carry passengers into space for tourism...based on a "space elevator" and space hotel in low Earth orbit. The hotel would orbit 775 miles above the Earth, and would suspend a space dock 160 miles above the Earth, via a hanging tether." Includes links to various other sites on space tethers. At the Space Tethers for Space Tourism Homepage.

Architectures and Algorithms for Self-Healing Autonomous Spacecraft (PDF version)

• Final report. By Dr. Laurence E. LaForge. Trips to the stars and the need for self-healing, fault-tolerant spacecraft. "Imagine spacecraft whose missions last three times the human lifespan. Imagine spacecraft with the ability to decide where to explore, how to plan a trajectory, and which data to record. These autonomous spacecraft will require computational systems whose fault tolerance and performance are orders of magnitude better than presently possible." A "Phase I" study conducted for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. Note: webbrowser must have Javascript. (See also the document of the same title, coauthored by Kirk F. Corver and Derek S. Carlson, at The Right Stuff of Tahoe, Inc.)
• In the context of discussing the subject-matter of the title, proposes Santa Maria, an unmanned mission to Alpha Centauri.

Ad Astra! (PDF) (1666K)

By Robert L. Forward. An expanded and updated version of his 1986 paper Feasibility of Interstellar Travel: A Review (for which see below). Published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol 49, 1996. At the author's website.

Don't Rule Out Interstellar Probes

By Gerald Nordley. A short (edited) series of letters on such subjects as cosmic radiation and shielding, interstellar dust, and "approach to impacts of passage". At the SETILeague's site.

Enabling Interstellar Voyages

By Marc G. Millis. A brief overview of the three "challenges" of interstellar travel: mass, speed, and energy. At NASA's Breakthrough Physics Project site. Adapted from "Breaking Through to the Stars", published in Ad Astra, Jan/Feb 1997.

Feasibility of Interstellar Travel: A Review (PDF) (1161K)

By Robert L. Forward. Largely concerned with the relative feasibility of a number of different propulsion technologies ("antiproton propulsion", interstellar ramjet, nuclear pulse, amongst others). Published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol 39, 1986; also in Astronautica Acta, No. 14, 1986. At the author's website.

Interstellar Probes, Soon?

Author unknown. Brief item in the September 1998 issue of Periastron, a newsletter of the American Cryonics Society.

Interstellar Cyclers

By Karl Schroeder. August 1998. A "non-technical article describing a new method of interstellar travel", one which "doesn't use any new technologies, but rather applies some well-known ones in...a new way...: the old 'Generation Starship' concept, magnetic/particle beam propulsion, and Buzz Aldrin's orbital cycler." At the author's own site

Interstellar Travel: What's Possible Now

Brief survey of light sails, nuclear pulse engines, etc.

Plasma Could Power First Interstellar Probes

News item at the SpaceDaily site. About Robert Winglee, NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts, and research on Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion (M2P2).

Star Travelers

By Mariette Dichristina (illustrated with space art by Don Foley). "Craft powered by antimatter, fusion, and solar-driven sails could take us to interstellar space." Article at Popular Science (the magazine's) website.

A Deep Space Mission to the Solar Foci

By Justin H. Carter. Spring 1997. A proposal for "an unmanned deep space mission to a distance of 550 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun and beyond", which it would reach in "approximately 20 years". Its primary objective "will be to search for solar gravitational lensing, believed to focus distant electromagnetic signals at around 550-800 AU from the sun." It would also "serve as one of two astronomical interferometry observatories", the other "matching interferometer being located on or near Earth". Such a large (over 550 AU) would "fulfill most of the JPL's proposed TAU (Thousand Astronomical Unit) mission objectives." The craft would be assembled in LEO. Student project. From the Design Archive of the Texas Space Grant Consortium's site.

NASA's Interstellar Probe (under study)

Interstellar Probe (under study)

Website. A mission "designed to cross the solar wind termination shock and heliopause and make a significant penetration into the local interstellar medium, characterizing the regions it passes." Will require "the achievement of spacecraft velocities of ~10 AU/year" (about 30 miles per second; ie from the Sun out to the orbit of Saturn in a single year). It is also described (briefly) in the OSS's strategic plan

Steve Suess's Pages
At the Science@NASA site.

The Interstellar Probe: Introduction and Rationale

The Interstellar Probe: Observing Objectives

The Interstellar Probe: Mission Technology

Out of this World to Another: Designing an Interstellar Spaceship

• An item by Kenneth Chang on the US ABC network's news site from 1999 reporting on an interstellar ark-like spaceship whose specs were drawn up by Steven Kilston, a staff consultant at Ball Aerospace & Technologies. (For more details, click here.)
• "Length: 1.2 miles. Passenger capacity: 1 million people. Cruising speed: 1.3 million mph. Cost: $[US]20 trillion."
• "It may just look like a giant, spinning can, but 10 decks of living and work space would be enough for 1 million people on a 10,000-year journey to another star."

A Realistic Interstellar Explorer

Phase I Final Report (PDF version)

By Dr. Ralph L. McNutt, Jr.

Phase 2 June 2000 Viewgraph Presentation (PDF version)

By Dr. Ralph L. McNutt, Jr., G. Bruce Andrews, James V. McAdams, et al.

• A study conducted for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. Note: webbrowser must have Javascript.
• "For more than 20 years, an "Interstellar Precursor Mission" has been discussed in scientific circles as a high priority for our understanding (1) the interstellar medium and its implications for the origin and evolution of matter in the Galaxy, (2) the structure of the heliosphere and its interaction with the interstellar environment, and (3) fundamental astrophysical processes that can be sampled in situ. The chief difficulty with actually carrying out such a mission is the need for reaching significant penetration into the interstellar medium (~1000 AU) within the working lifetime of the initiators (< 50 years)."

Roundtrip Interstellar Travel Using Laser-Pushed Lightsails (PDF) (1477K)

By Robert L. Forward. Technical paper. Much of the paper deals with the technical feasibility of the second part of the title (interstellar travel by lightsail using solar-system-based lasers). The last half describes the technical feasibility of the first part of the title: using such a system for a round trip to the "nearest star" (preceded by first a flyby then an interstellar rendezvous mission). Published in the Journal of Spacecraft, March/April 1984. Stored at the author's website.

Small Laser-Propelled Interstellar Probe

By Geoffrey A Landis. Looks at a "laser-propelled lightsail flyby probe".

Solar Sail Mission Requirements (PDF) (228K)

Final report. Prepared for JPL by Robert L. Forward, with Benjamin Diedrich and Colin McInnes. Consists of "a set of one-page sheets, each documenting one of a large number of solar sail missions and the requirements those missions place on the sail materials, design, structure, and operations needed to carry out the planned mission". More than 40 are described. Some of the missions are manned, others are unmanned. Some are laser-pushed, others are solar. Some are interstellar (the very first, for example, is for a "lifelong" mission carrying a crew of 20 to Barnard's Star), others are within the solar system. Stored at the author's website.

Starship Daedalus

A description of the famous engineering study of an unmanned starship by the British Interplanetary Society between 1973-77. The proposed target was Barnard's Star, six light years from the Sun.

Starwisp: An Ultra-Light Interstellar Probe (PDF) (799K)

By Robert L. Forward. Technical paper. Starwisp would be an unmanned interstellar flyby probe propelled by a lightsail pushed by microwaves beamed at a high acceleration from the solar system and reaching a "coast velocity" close to light speed. Published in the Journal of Spacecraft, May/June 1985. Stored at the author's website.

Encounter 2001

Press release from Celestis concerning a proposed US commercial space project which is planning to launch "samples of human hair from as many as 4.5 million people worldwide" on a trajectory to Jupiter and beyond to interstellar space.

Articles & Essays

The Alcubierre Warp Drive

By John G Cramer. A look at the ideas for a "warp drive" within the constraints of general relativity proposed by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published November 1996. Alcubierre's original paper is also available on-line:

• The Warp Drive: Hyper-Fast Travel Within General Relativity
  By Miguel Alcubierre. "It is shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed." Only the abstract is available as a HTML file. However, the entire paper can be downloaded in LaTeX, postscript, or gzipped postscript versions. Originally published in Classical and Quantum Gravity, volume 11.

The Challenge to Create the Space Drive

• By Marc G. Millis. A 14-page technical memorandum (Aug. 1996) prepared for the Interstellar Flight Symposium of the 15th Annual International Space Development Conference sponsored by the National Space Society and later (1997) published in the Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol. 13. At the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program Homepage.
• "To travel to our neighboring stars as practically as envisioned by science fiction, breakthroughs in science are required. One of these breakthroughs is to discover a self-contained means of propulsion that requires no propellant.")

The Dark Side of the Force of Gravity

By John G Cramer. Dark matter, the "Big Gnab", and an axion-powered space drive. At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published February 1985.

Emerging Possibilities for Space Propulsion Breakthroughs

• By Marc G. Millis. At the Warp Drive When? site. Originally published in the Interstellar Propulsion Society Newsletter, Vol. I, No. 1, July 1995.
• "Just how limited are rockets for interstellar travel? ... If you want to deliver a modest size payload, say a full Shuttle cargo (20,000 kg), and you are patient enough to wait 900 years for it to just fly by the nearest star, ...[i]f you use a rocket like on the Shuttle (Isp~ 500s), there isn't enough mass in the universe to get you there. If you use a nuclear fission rocket (Isp~ 5,000s) you need about a billion super-tankers of propellant. If you use a nuclear fusion rocket (Isp~ 10,000s) you only need about a thousand super-tankers. And if you assume that you'll have a super-duper Ion or Antimatter rocket (Isp~ 50,000s), well now you only need about ten railway tankers. It gets even worse if you want to get there sooner."

Faster Than Light Starflight

Conducted by Geoffrey A. Landis. Participants: Robert L. Forward, John G. Cramer, & Gregory Benford. A transcript of a "Science Forum" which Landis conducted for Science Fiction Age Magazine. Several scientist science-fiction writers discuss FTL star travel. A later forum discussed slower-than-lightspeed travel.

FTL Travel: The Realities of an SF Cliche

By Brian A. Hopkins. Wormholes, tachyons, etc. At the author's website. An article originally commissioned by (and first appeared) in Just Because, a publication for which Hopkins is one of the two Science Editors, "the other being Richard Dunbar. Richard and I were to write pro and con sides of the FTL argument. I drew the con side of the argument."

Hydrogen Ice Spacecraft for Robotic Interstellar Spaceflight

By Jonathan Vos Post. Proposes an "'autophage' (self-consuming) spacecraft" constructed from "cryogenic hydrogen (or deuterium and tritium) ice" which "can use the same material for structure, shielding, coolant, and fuel." At the Computer Futures Space Publications page.

Interstellar Propulsion Technologies

Overview. At NASA's MSFC's Advanced Space Transportation website.

The Krasnikov Tube: A Subway to the Stars

By John G Cramer. S. V. Krasnikov has found a "near-fatal" flaw in the Alcubierre's warp drive (see above), and has suggested an alternative: "create a space warp behind the space ship as it travels at near lightspeed to some distant star system, and then use the 'tube' thus created for the return trip." (A Krasnikov tube has the interesting property that it gets you back home shortly after you left, no matter how far you go!) At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published September 1997. Two of the papers cited by this article are available on line:

• Hyperfast Interstellar Travel in General Relativity
  By S. V. Krasnikov. Only the abstract is available in HTML. The full paper, however, can be downloaded in postscript, PDF (aka Adobe Acrobat), and numerous other formats.
• A Superluminal Subway: The Krasnikov Tube
  By Allen E. Everett and Thomas A. Roman. Again only the abstract is available in HTML, with the full paper downloadable in postscript, PDF (aka Adobe Acrobat), and numerous other formats.

The Micro-Warp Drive

By John G Cramer. A look at an "improvement on the Alcubierre Drive that makes the warp-bubble large on the inside and microscopic on the outside". At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published February 2000.

NASA Goes FTL--Part 2: Cracks in Nature's FTL Armor

By John G Cramer. An overview of ideas for non-wormhole FTL travel at the NASA-sponsored Advanced Quantum/Relativity Theory Propulsion Workshop Cramer attended in May 1994. At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published February 1995.

Nuke Your Way to the Stars

By John G Cramer. An overview of Robert Zubrin's nuclear salt water rocket. At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published mid-December 1992.

Proposed Methods of Interstellar Travel

By Nathan Millard. May 1996. A "student paper". Discusses solar and laser sails, particle beam acceleration, microwave propulsion, and antimatter and nuclear pulse propulsion systems. At the Murdoch MacKay Collegiate Institute website.

Setting Sail for the Stars

Author unknown. 8 April 1999. "Cracking the whip and unfurling gray sails are among new techniques under discussion at the 1999 Advanced Propulsion Research Workshop." Solar sails & M2P2. News item from NASA's Space Science News site.

Small Laser-Powered Interstellar Probe

By Geoffrey A. Landis. Presented at the 46th International Astronautical Congress, October 1995, Oslo, Norway. (Another paper on the same subject was presented by him the previous year at the Conference on Practical Robotic Interstellar Flight:

• Laser-Powered Interstellar Probe
  Only the abstract and the text portion of the presentation made at the conference are online.

Starflight Without Warp Drive

Conducted by Geoffrey A. Landis. Participants: David Brin, Robert L. Forward, & Jonathan Vos Post. A transcript of a "Science Forum" which Landis conducted for Science Fiction Age Magazine. A collection of scientists and sci-fi writers discusses "the possibility of interstellar travel without magic" (ie meaning slower-than-lightspeed starflight). An earlier forum discussed FTL star travel.

[Starship] Propulsion Systems

By Kelly Starks. February 20, 1996. Overview of the various types of "interstellar drive systems" looked at by the Starship Design Project of the Lunar Institute of Technology. Bussard ramscoops, beamed power, multi-cycle ram augmented interstellar ramjets, and others.

Ultralight Solar Sails for Interstellar Travel

Overview

Final Report (PDF version)

• A "Phase I" study conducted in 1998 (final report: December 1999) by Cindy Christensen for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. Final report seems to have been written by Dean Spieth and Robert Zubrin. Note: webbrowser must have Javascript.
• "Conventional solar sails made of aluminized plastic films cannot reach velocities relevant for interstellar flight on the power of sunlight alone...as their thrust to mass ratio is too low to allow the attainment of high velocities before leaving the solar system. For this reason, alternative concepts have been advanced which involve pushing light sails with very high-powered lasers or other transmitting devices positioned within the solar system."

Wormholes

More about Wormholes - To the Stars in No Time

By John G Cramer. Wormholes as starships. A follow-up article to Cramer's "Wormholes and Time Machines" one below. At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published May 1990.

Natural Wormholes: Squeezing the Vacuum

By John G Cramer. An overview of a "plausible mechanism for the formation of stable natural wormholes" proposed by David Hochberg and Thomas W. Kephart. At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published July 1992.

NASA Goes FTL--Part 1: Wormhole Physics

By John G Cramer. An overview of ideas for non-wormhole FTL travel at the NASA-sponsored Advanced Quantum/Relativity Theory Propulsion Workshop Cramer attended in May 1994. At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published February 1995.

Wormholes and Time Machines

By John G Cramer. At Cramer's Alternate View site. ("Alternate View" was a popular-science column in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.) Published June 1989. "A wormhole is a funnel-shaped tunnel that can connect one complete universe with another or can connect two separated regions of the same universe." The idea "comes from Einstein's theory of general relativity itself using "Schwartzschild geometry", a way of inscribing a space-time coordinate system on the highly curved space in the vicinity of a black hole."

Wormholes: Searching for a "Subway to the Stars"

A press release from the University of California (at Geoffrey Landis's website) concerning a NASA workshop on Faster-than-Light travel, "one result" of which was that "we determined that cosmic wormholes could have net negative mass". A HTML version of the paper that resulted from this ("Natural Wormholes as Gravitational Lenses") is not (alas) on the Net, although postscript & PDF versions (amongst others) can be downloaded. See also Cramer's paper above.

Websites

Interstellar Propulsion Society Home Page

"The mission of the [IPS] is to accelerate scientific and engineering advancements in space propulsion, leading to manned missions to other star systems at fractional light speeds, relativistic velocities and beyond."

Technical Publications of Dr. Robert L. Forward

At the author's website. Not really a website so much as a bibliographic listing of Dr Forward's publications. Of interest for the large number of these papers (over 50) available for downloading as PDF files, including ones covering such subjects as antimatter propulsion, tethers (lots about these), and light sails. Some of the less technical and more general papers have been given separate links on these pages.

Warp Drive When?

A NASA site. "...focuses on the propulsion related issues, explaining the challenges of interstellar travel, existing propulsion ideas, and the possibilities emerging from scientific literature that may one day provide the desired breakthroughs."

Orion: the Spaceflight Simulator

Software for Macintosh computers by Robert P. Munafo that simulates starflight out to about 32 light years from the Sun. Built-in help. Shareware.

Relativistic Flight Simulation Links

Compiled by David Porthouse. "Computer movies of travel near the speed of light". Links to various WWW sites offering pics, movies, or software showing you what you would see travelling near the speed of light.

Warp 9: the Starflight Simulator

Software for MS-DOS/Windows computers "designed to demonstrate one of the aspects of interstellar flight--the changing view of the constellations." Claims to present a "reasonably accurate model of space in the Sun's neighbourhood, including all stars within 25 light-years (ly) of the Sun, the majority between 50 and 75 ly and most of the bright stars that make up the familiar constellations." Doesn't need Windows, but requires a VGA screen and "if you have a primordial (<=386) machine, a co-processor or lots of patience." Instructions included. Freeware.

XREL: Relativistic Starflight Simulation for UNIX

XREL "depicts, as realistically as possible, the appearance of stars as seen from a starship moving at speeds close to the speed of light." Uses random starfields or cubical grids of stars. Needs UNIX running X-Windows. Site includes gifs produced by the simulator at various degrees of C.

StarShip Design

A speculative design for a fusion powered starship. At the The Museum of Unnatural Mystery site.

Starship Design Project

"This is not a Star Trek or science fiction site. We are seriously trying to develop plausable concepts for starships we think could be built and flown in the mid 21st century, using the likely technologies of the day." The design is for a mission c.2050 to a terrestrial-style planet orbiting Tau Ceti. At the Lunar Institute of Technology site.

Starship Designs: Rocketry

By Bruce Bowden. Orion, Daedulus, Project Longshot, and others. Part of the Scientium site.

Starship Designs: Sailing Ships

Magnetic sails, relativistic particle beam propulsion, solar and laser-driven lightsails, and Starwisp. Part of the Scientium site.

Starships of the Mind

"A Look at Relativistic Interstellar Rocket Travel" by Bruce M. Bowden. Orion, Daedulus, Project Longshot, etc. Part of the Scientium site.

The Speed of Light--A Limit on Principle?

By Laro Schatzer. "A physicist's view on an old controversy." At the author's website.

Note: the dates given for proposed launches should be treated as tentative. Dates for missions proposed by commercial concerns in particular have come and gone without any craft leaving the ground. To give one example, a launch date of September 2000 was proposed for Applied Space Resources' Lunar Retriever. Now that September 2000 has passed, their site is listing "Spring 2002" as the proposed date of launch. (If they start looking too tentative, they will be removed and filed away under the one of the "paper studies" sections of Exploring the Moon & Mars, as I have already done in one instance.)

[None]

Electra (launch date: ?)

[Commercial lunar lander to Mare Anguis. Transorbital Inc.]

Transorbital Electra

Lunar-A (proposed launch (NSSDC): September 2002)

[Lunar Orbiter and two penetrators (one on Near-side, one on Far-side). Japan.]

Lunar-A (at Japan's ISAS)

Not much info here. Only a pic & the barest details.

Lunar-A (at NSSDC)

LUNAR-A (at ESA)

Lunar-A

Objective, description of instruments, pics, etc. At ISAS's site on its missions.

Lunar Retriever (proposed launch: Spring 2002)

[Lunar sample-return mission to Mare Nectaris. Applied Space Resources.]

ASR Lunar Mission

Details on the proposed mission, a conceptual pic or two, etc. At the Applied Space Resources site.

LunarSat (launch date: ?)

[Lunar "micro-orbiter". Proposed ESA microsatellite-cum-education project. ESA.]

LunarSat Space Mission

Home site of the proposal.

SELENE (proposed launch (ISAS): 2003)

["SELenological and ENgineering Explorer". Lunar orbiter (and lander demonstration). Japan.]

Selene (at NSSDC)

Japan's Selene

• At Japan's NASDA site.
• "Japan's 30-year project to set up a moon base is divided into three parts that will start with an unmanned probe and develop into a manned base. The first part of the project, known as the SELENE Project..., has already started."

SELENE

Mission concept, description of instruments, pics, etc. At ISAS's site on its missions.

Smart-1 (proposed launch: October 2002)

[Lunar orbiter. Envisaged as a test flight for solar electric propulsion (SEP). ESA.]

ESA Science: Smart-1

At the ESA science site.

Smart-1 News Item

Brief piece about it in the December 1997 ESA Science Newsletter.

Trailblazer (proposed launch: 2001)

[Commercial lunar orbiter. Transorbital Inc.]

Transorbital Trailblazer

ACE (1997-)

[ACE = Advanced Composition Explorer. Will sample low-energy particles of solar origin and high-energy galactic particles. In a halo orbit at the L1 Lagrangian point. NASA.]

ACE Project Page

On a NASA GFSC server.

Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) Home Page

On CalTech's Space Radiation Laboratory's site.

Cassini (1997-)

[A Saturn orbiter mission. Carries a Titan probe (Huygens). NASA/ESA/Italy.]

Cassini (at NSSDC)

Cassini Homepage

Cassini Imaging Science System

At the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory site at the University of Arizona.

Cassini FAQ

At JPL's Cassini Homepage site.

Cassini Titan IVB-33 Launch "Site"

At the website for NASA's Lewis facility.

Magnetosphere Imaging Instrument (MIMI)

The Huygens Probe

Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer Project (DISR)

At the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory site at the University of Arizona.

ESA Science: Huygens

Website. At the ESA science site. The probe, it's mission, experiments, etc. Also a technical description of the probe and a description of its scientific objectives.

Huygens

At the ESA's ESOC centre. The bare details plus several artists' impressions.

Huygens (at NSSDC)

A cutaway view of the probe and information about its experiments, etc.

Huygens Pics

Various photos & space art of Huygens. On an ESA site with photographs & artists' impressions of various ESA projects.

Deep Space 1 (1998-)

[Primarily a technology-validation mission, but also an asteroid and comet flyby. Flew by asteroid 9969 Braille in July 1999. How scheduled to flyby comet Borrelly in September 2001. DS1 was "the first to use high-performance, solar electric ion propulsion." NASA, for the New Millennium Program.]

Deep Space 1 (at NSSDC)

Deep Space 1 Home Page

At NASA's New Millennium Program site.

NASA['s] Glenn [Research Centre] Provides Critical Technologies for Deep Space 1

The GRC developed DS 1's solar electric propulsion plant (amongst other technologies). At NASA's Glenn Research Centre site.

Galileo (1989-)

[Jupiter orbiter mission. Also carried a Jovian atmosphere probe. NASA.]

Galileo (at NSSDC)

Galileo Project Homepage (also here).

The Galileo Mission: the Lunar Flybys

Part of Exploring the Moon.

Galileo's Energetic Particle Detector (EPD)

The Galileo Probe

The Fate of the Galileo Probe

By Jonathan Lunine and Rich Young. From The Planetary Report, vol. 15, no. 6, Nov/Dec 1995.

The Galileo Probe Homepage

At the NASA's Ames Research Centre's website.

On Scientific Assessment of Options for the Disposal of the Galileo Spacecraft

By Space Studies Board Chair Claude Canizares and Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration Chair John Wood. A letter sent to Dr. John Rummel, NASA planetary protection officer concerning the proposed fate of the Galileo probe. At the Space Studies Board of the US National Academy of Sciences site. Dated June 28, 2000.

The Wild Ride of the Galileo Probe: Sampling Jupiter's Atmosphere

By Richard E. Young. From The Planetary Report, vol. 16, no. 6, Nov/Dec 1996.

Mars Global Surveyor (1996-)

[Mars orbiter mission. Part of NASA's 10-year Mars Surveyor program.]

Essays & ArticlesIMG ALIGN=TOP SRC="/images/icons/new.gif">

Mars Global Surveyor FAQ

How much will the mission cost? How long will it last? What are the dimensions of surveyor? Etc. AT JPL's MGS site.

Mars Global Surveyor: What to Look For in the Results

By Michael Malin. From The Planetary Report, vol. 16, no. 1, Jan/Feb 1996.

Mars Global Surveyor Timeline

The amended version released after the problems with the MGS aerobraking. By Ken Edgett. In TES NEWS, January 1998.

Websites

Mars Global Surveyor (at CMEX)

At the Centre for Mars Exploration site.

Mars Global Surveyor (NSSDC page)

Mars Global Surveyor Home Page

Mars Global Surveyor Project

At a Malin Space Science Systems site.

Mars Global Surveyor Thermal Emission Spectrometer Homepage

Marslink

"A Space Education Program Based on the Mars Global Surveyor Mission." Hosted by Space Explorers, Inc..

Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) Homepage

• MOLA Science Investigation

Thermal Emission Spectrometer Project Homepage

The TES is one of five instruments on the MGS spacecraft.

NEAR (1996-)

["Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous". Flyby of 253 Mathilde and rendezvous with, and orbit of, 433 Eros. A NASA Discovery mission/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).]

NEAR (at NSSDC)

NEAR Homepage

NEARlink

"A Space Education Program Based on the Mars Global Surveyor Mission." Run by Space Explorers, Inc..

Nozomi (Planet B) (1998- )

[("Nozomi" = Japanese for "hope".) Mars orbiter mission. Now planned to arrive 2004. Japan.]

Aiming for the Red Planet: Japan's Planet-B Mission

By Tatsundo Yamamoto and Koichiro Tsuruda. From The Planetary Report, vol. 16, no. 6, Nov/Dec 1996.

Nozomi

Objective, description of instruments, pics, current status, etc. At ISAS's site on its missions.

Planet B (at Japan's ISAS)

Not much info here. Only a pic & the barest details.

Planet B (at NSSDC)

Nozomi Homepage

Stardust (1999- )

[Comet (Wild 2) coma sample return. A NASA Discovery mission.]

Stardust (at NSSDC)

33 Fascinating Facts about Stardust and Its Mission

A FAQ from JPL.

Stardust Curation Team

Stardust Home Page

Ulysses (1990-)

[A deep space voyage to high latitudes over the solar poles via Jupiter. ESA/NASA.]

ESA Science: Ulysses

At the ESA science site.

JHU/APL Ulysses Homepage

Swoops Experiment

"Solar Wind Observations Over the Poles of the Sun".

Ulysses (at NSSDC)

Ulysses

At the ESA's ESOC centre. The bare details plus a couple of artists' impressions.

Ulysses Home Page

At JPL.

Ulysses Pics

On an ESA site with pics & artists' impressions of various ESA projects.

Voyager (1977-)

[Flybys to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, & Neptune. NASA.]

Voyager: The Grandest Tour

Factsheets, etc. A JPL site.

Voyager 1 & 2 (at NSSDC)

Voyager Interstellar Mission Home Page

Voyager Low Energy Charged Particle (LECP) Instrument (at APL)

The Voyages of the Voyagers

Robert Barron's page on the Voyager mission.

Wind (1994-)

[First of two NASA spacecraft in the Global Geospace Science initiative, which is part of the International Solar Terrestrial Physics Project (ISTP) Project. Initially in a sunward, multiple double-lunar swingby orbit, to be followed by a halo orbit at the Earth-Sun L1 point. Designed to "improve greatly the understanding of the flow of energy, mass and momentum in the solar-terrestrial environment with particular emphasis on 'geospace'." NASA.]

Wind Factsheet

"Wind Spacecraft to Study Solar Breeze"

Wind Homepage

Wind Mission Summary

Brief. Background info and "What Wind Will Do".

2001 Mars Odyssey (See Mars Surveyor 2001.)

BepiColombo(ESA) (proposed launch: 2009)

[Mercury orbiter & lander(s). Venus/Mercury gravitational assists. Consists of a 3 modules, launched together and separated on arrival at Mercury: a Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, a Mercury Planetary Orbiter, and a Mercury Surface Element. An ESA Cornerstone mission.]

BepiColombo (at NSSDC)

BepiColombo: Cornerstone Mission to Mercury

Overview of the mission and its objectives.

ESA Mercury Mission Named BepiColombo

30 September 1999. News item at the Space Daily site.

ESA Science: BepiColombo

Website. At the ESA science site.

The Mercury Cornerstone

Contour(proposed launch: July 2002)

[COmet Nucleus TOUR. Fly-by of three (and possibly four) comet nuclei. A NASA Discovery mission.]

Contour (at NSSDC)

Contour Homepage

Deep Impact (proposed launch: January 2004)

[Comet rendezvous (with P/Tempel 1) and impact mission. A NASA Discovery mission.]

Deep Impact (at NSSDC)

Deep Impact Homepage

Europa Orbiter (proposed launch: November 2003)

[Proposed as an "Ice and Fire" mission for launch early next century. NASA. See also Planetary and Lunar Missions Under Consideration.]

Europa Orbiter Home Page

Genesis (proposed launch: Jan 2001)

[Solar Wind Sample Return. Spacecraft will be placed in a halo orbit about the L1 point in space about 0.01 AU from earth. Formerly titled (in another incarnation) the Suess-Urey mission. A NASA Discovery mission.]

Genesis (at NSSDC)

Genesis: Homepage

Genesis factsheet, historical note, links, etc. A CalTech site.

Genesis Mission Homepage

At JPL.

Genesis: The Sample Collectors

At the site Planetary Sciences Research Institute (one of the bodies working on developing the solar wind collectors for the mission).

What is Genesis?

At the Planetary Sciences Research Institute site.

Mars Express (proposed launch: June 2003)

[Proposed Mars orbiter & lander, devoted to geochemical & past life studies. ESA.]

Preliminary News Items

Earthlings wrangle over search for Martians

A Newscientist item, 14 June 1997.

Mars Express News Item

An ESA Science Newsletter, July 1997.

Mars Express News Item

More tidbits in the December 1997 ESA Science Newsletter.

Beagle 2 Lander

Beagle 2 Homepage

Website on the proposed British lander.

Beagle 2: A British Lander for Mars

By Bo Maxwell. An overview of the lander. At the New Mars site.

Proposed Experiments

ASPERA-3

A proposal for an energetic neutral atom analyzer for the Mars Express Orbiter.

Mars Express

Overview of the mission, quick facts, plus links to news items. On the Mars News site.

Mars Express Page

At the ESA science site.

Mars Express Pics

On an ESA site with pics & artists' impressions of various ESA projects.

Mars Surveyor 2001 (proposed launch: April 2001)

[Formerly 2 separate spacecraft, one an orbiter & the other a lander. Only the orbiter will now be sent. The lander has been cancelled. Now named "2001 Mars Odyssey". Part of NASA's 10-year Mars Surveyor program.]

Both

2001 Mars Odyssey

Website on the mission. Overview, news items, etc. At the Mars News site.

Announcement Describing the Mission

A NASA "Announcement of Opportunity" for the mission.

Mars Exploration Timeline (2001)

Mars Surveyor 2001 Mission

Report of the 2001 Mars Science Definition Team

At the Centre for Mars Exploration site.

Orbiter Only (Launch: 7 Mar 2001)

Mars Surveyor 2001 Orbiter (at NSSDC)

Mars Surveyor 2001 Orbiter THEMIS Homepage

THEMIS = THermal EMission Imaging System.

Mars Surveyor 2003 (proposed launch: May/June 2003)

[Dual Mars lander mission. Each lander consists of a rover landing Mars Pathfinder-fashion. Part of NASA's 10-year Mars Surveyor program.]

Mars Surveyor 2003 (at NSSDC)

Missions to Mars

Cornell University's Athena rover site. The Athena science package will be used on the 2003 rovers.

Mercury Orbiter (Japan) (proposed launch: 2005)

[An as-yet unnamed mission using solar electric propulsion. Japan (ISAS).]

Preliminary ISAS Mercury Orbiter Mission Design (missing)

By Hiroshi Yamakawa et al. Abstract for a paper given to the 1998 IAA Conference.

A Rising Mercury For Japan

News article on Spacer.com. Dated 12 June 1998.

Messenger (proposed launch: March 2004)

[The Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging mission. Mercury orbiter. A NASA Discovery mission.]

Messenger (at NSSDC)

Messenger Homepage

Solar System Exploration Missions: Messenger

Very brief. But it does give the key dates in the mission in a clear, easy-to-read format. At NASA's Solar System Exploration site.

Muses-C (proposed launch (ISAS): July 2002)

[Asteroid lander, rover, and sample return mission. [Late note: NASA has cancelled the rover part of the mission.] ISAS (Japan)/NASA.]

Muses-C (at Japan's ISAS)

Not much info here. Only a pic & the barest details.

Muses-C (at NSSDC)

Muses-C

Objective, description of instruments, pics, etc. At ISAS's site on its missions.

Muses-C Homepage

NEAP (proposed launch: April 2001)

["Near Earth Asteroid Prospector". Envisioned to be the first private spacecraft to leave earth orbit and to visit and land on another planetary body." Rendezvous with the asteroid 4660 Nereus (although this may possibly change). The Space Development Corporation.]

NEAP

At the SpaceDev site. Gives away surprisingly little about the project.

NEAP (at P.E.R.M.A.N.E.N.T.)

Comment on the project (mid-1998).

NEAP (at California Space Institute)

Somewhat more information here than at the other two sites, but not necessarily what the rest of us might like to know about the project!

Pluto-Kuiper Express (proposed launch: was Dec 2004; now more likely to be 2009 or later)

["...to explore Pluto/Charon and the fringes of our Solar System." Proposed as an "Ice and Fire" mission. NASA. See also Planetary and Lunar Missions Under Consideration.]

Pluto-Kuiper Express Home Page

Website. Mission information, science definition team reports (some in HTML, but most in PDF format), conceptual pics, etc. At JPL's Ice & Fire site.

The Pluto-Kuiper Express page

In Roadmap for the Mission to the Solar System.

Report of the Pluto Express Science Definition Team

At the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory site at the University of Arizona. Rationale for mission, proposed Jupiter/Io flyby (including a proposed option for the deployment of an Io probe), etc.

Save the Pluto-Kuiper Express

Set up and maintained by Ted A. Nichols II for the "Save the Pluto Kuiper Express Campaign".

Rosetta (proposed launch: 23 Jan 2003)

[Comet (Wirtanen) orbiter and lander. Will also do flybys of two asteroids (plus a Mars gravity assist). An ESA Horizon 2000 mission.]

ESA Science: Rosetta

At the ESA science site.

Rosetta (at NSSDC)

Rosetta: ESA's Rendezvous Mission with a Comet

Overview of the proposed mission. At the ESA's ESOC site.

Rosetta Lander Information Server

Mission overview, lander pictures and drawings (& movies), etc.

VIRTIS Homepage

"A visible/infrared mapping spectrometer for the Rosetta mission".

What is Rosetta?

Rosetta at the website for Planetary Sciences Research institute.

Solar Probe (proposed launch: Feb 2007)

[Will make the "first ever measurements within the atmosphere of a star". Proposed as an "Ice and Fire" mission. The spacecraft will pass within 3 solar radii of the Sun's surface. NASA.]

• Solar Probe
• Solar Probe
  At the Ice & Fire Preprojects home site.

Terrestrial Planet Finder

Website. Next-generation space interferometry mission following the Space Interferometry Mission of 2006. Will attempt to find Earth-like planets orbiting stars up to 50 light years away, and look for signs of methane, ozone, water vapor, and carbon dioxide in their atmospheres. (Is also expected to be able to see the cores of quasars and the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.) Proposed launch date: 2011. An Earth-trailing solar orbit at the L2 Lagrangian point is proposed.

Mars Network

Proposal for a network of communications satellites around the Red Planet. Proposed as part of the Mars Surveyor program, for launch possibly as early as 2003, and as a first step in the proposed "Interplanetary Internet". Further info can also be found here on the Mars News site.

Space Interferometry Mission

Website. Proposed as the first optical interferometer in space. Will attempt to determine the positions and distances of stars several hundred times more accurately than previously. Will also trial technology to be used in the Terrestrial Planet Finder. Proposed launch date: June 2006. Will go into an Earth-trailing solar orbit at the L2 Lagrangian point.

Mars In The Early 21st Century

By Bruce Moomaw. News item. 6 November 2000. Space Daily looks at the proposed missions to Mars that NASA & others have in their sights for the next decade or so.

Spacecraft in Heliocentric Orbit

Tables (by spacecraft name, launch date, and sponsor/country) showing all spacecraft that have escaped the Earth/Moon system.