Even Rocket Science isn't rocket science...

This page was last updated in 2002, but some of the links are still of interest. We are planning to implement a better resource in the future -- TJH (2006-5/10)

Information sites

Challenger Center O N L I N E

The Challenger Center is an educational and space advocacy organization started in memorium of the Challenger crew.

Basics of Space Flight

JPL introduction to space flight technology. Focused more on actual flight than our Rocket Science 101 concept, and at a somewhat higher technical level.

Encyclopedia Astronautica (astronautix.com)

An excellent online resource for space history. Excellent collection of spacecraft images which can be redistributed and/or reused under very reasonable terms (attribution is required). Particularly good coverage of Russian space history.

Project Apollo Drawings and Technical Diagrams

Apollo era space history resource with lots of high-quality diagrams.

Space Resources-Univ. of Wisconsin

Affil. with LRS?

NASA Human Spaceflight

Official NASA page on human spaceflight -- a good starting point with a lot of embedded links.

Lunar Exploration

Portal page on Moon exploration from the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC). Lots of useful tables, images, and links.

SPACE EDUCATORS' HANDBOOK PDF LIBRARY

Educational materials available in PDF for printing and classroom use. Generally appears to be at early high-school level. I have some questions about the relevance and age-group targeting of these, but give them a try.

NASA Scientific and Technical Information Server

Access to a number of government publications which have been converted to HTML for use on the web.

Space agencies and International Sites

NASA Homepage

Official NASA main page.

Space Research Institute(IKI) Home Page

A Russian spaceflight site. I've had variable results with this site -- it seems like the server is overloaded.

NASDA Homepage

The Japanese space agency.

Centrospazio/Orbital Mechanics

The Italian space agency.

Russian Cosmonautics

Another Russian page dedicated to Human spaceflight specifically.

Organizations

The Artemis Project

The Artemis Project is unique and interesting to us for several reasons. It is one of the first "space-tourism" sites -- thus focusing on the real "because it's there" reasons for doing space development rather than excuse reasons like "resources" or "spinoffs". It also is an amateur/semi-professional organization of individuals collaborating over the internet. It was one of the prime motivators for starting the Narya project.

The National Space Society

Often accused of being "no more than a NASA fan club", the NSS has nevertheless been fairly effective at getting the word out about space, and educating the public on its value. The real prize are the individual chapter organizations, though, which seems to be where the action is.

The Space Frontier Foundation

The Space Frontier Foundation is extremely supportive of commercial space entrepreneurship and has been involved in a number of very high-dollar deals. Our main criticism? They tend towards space as a rich man's game -- the middle class members of the group are unlikely to have much they can realistically do. Still, they are a breath of fresh air in the government-dominated arena that space development has been.

The Moon Society

As the Artemis project matured, it became evident that there were many points of view on what the actual objectives should be. This led to the creation of a more-general society not necessarily focused on the Artemis Society's specific goal of building a hotel on the Moon. Most of the general information about colonizing the moon has been assumed by The Moon Society.

The Mars Society

Largely spurred by Robert Zubrin's "Mars Direct" concepts (but carried much further by now), the Mars Society's objective is to return to and establish a permanent colony on Mars. Recent activities of note include the "Mars Desert Research Station" in which participants live and work in a mock Mars base, to learn about practical problems that are likely to come up in the process of colonizing Mars.

The Planetary Society

The Planetary Society is a worldwide membership organization which has funded a number of innovative space and astronomy projects including the most intensive SETI search to date and the Cosmos I solar sail project. Unfortunately, they have overused Flash and Real Player media on their site, so I'm finding it hard to use nowadays.

The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation

Who's really doing something in space? Probably the most interesting group are the amateur radio satellite groups. AMSAT is their primary presence on the web, and has lots of information about the history of amateur satellites, since the first launch in 1961 to the present (over 50 satellites have been launched by various amateur groups!).