Kosmos

Observation of the Earth and Its Environment

This book is about spaceborne missions and instruments. In addition, surveys of airborne missions and of campaigns can be found on the accompanying CD-ROM in pdf-format. Compared with the 3rd edition the spaceborne part grew from about 300 to 1000 pages. The complete text - including the electronic-only chapters - contains more than 1900 pages. New chapters treat the history of Earth observation and university missions. The number of commercial Earth imaging missions has grown significantly. A chapter contains reference data and definitions. Extensive appendices provide a comprehensive glossary, acronyms and abbreviations and an index of sensors. An effort has been made to present the information in context, to point out relationships and interconnections. The book may serve as a reference and guide to all involved in the various national and international space programs: researchers and managers, service providers and data users, teachers and students.

Kosmos: A Portrait of the Russian Space Age

The inherent contradictions of the Space Age -- the mixture of technologies high and low, of nostalgia and progress, of pathos and promise -- are revealed in Kosmos, Adam Bartos's astonishing photographic survey of the Soviet space program. Bartos's fascination with this subject led him to seek out places like the bedroom where Yuri Gagarian slept the night before his history-making flight into space, located in the Baiknour Cosmodrome, the one-time top-secret space complex in the Kazakh desert. Kosmos presents 94 of Bartos's photographs, rich with the incongruities of the history, science, culture, and politics of the Space Age.

Europe and Asia in Space