Kirjahaku

At the moment, it is easy to get money to search for exoplanets. Congress has mandated NASA to do just that. They are to: "acquire an improved understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve, including better descriptions of planetary system architectures, compositions, and environments. Second, they need to learn enough about exoplanets to make informed predictions about habitability, and to make meaningful searches of alien life in distant star systems." Key questions are, is life unique to Earth or is it pervasive throughout the Universe? Are all the forms of life basically the same, or do they differ? Did life on Earth get started from non-biological sources, or were we "contaminated" from space.

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.

This book talks about the coming exploitation of the moon for materials and manufacturing. This has a lot of precedents in things like the California and Alaskan gold rushes. There is a need for infrastructure on the lunar surface, and that is in the design phase. Major challenges remain in who owns what, and conflicts can be expected. All in all, an exciting time is coming. What we learn on the moon, we can mostly apply on Mars. And, why stop there?With Commercial firms involved and interested in mining the moon and asteroids, Earth will have to develop more complex "Space Law" to address who owns what and who benefits. In the past, the new frontiers, America, the Yukon, the "West" were mostly wild and ungoverned, at least at first. Hopefully, we will think this thing through, so no corporation or Nation-state will be able to enrich themselves, at the cost of others. This involves interpretation od the Outer Space Treaty, signed by most nations. Of particular interest are sites on the lunar surface with resources that could be mined, areas of total or no sunlight. Looks like we will need a legal cadre to sort out the details. But, there is some precedent in Antarctica. What is the most valuable thing on the moon? Well, if you want something light weight that is worth bringing back to Earth, that wuld be Helium-3, of use in a new generation of fusion reactors that would be less costly, and much less dangerous. Probably the next thing would be water, and we would use that in-situ both for greenhouses, but also cracked down, with solar power, to its constituent hydrogen and oxygen. That's rocket fuel, good for the return trip, or for going out further. That's rocket fuel that doesn't have to be carried up from Earth by...more rocket fuel. Also, the oxygen supply for lunar bases could come from local sources, until we get the Greenhouses going. There's always a need for spare oxygen.

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 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.

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 describes two men whose careers intersected at the Mount Savage Locomotive Works in Western Maryland. T.H. Paul was Master Mechanic of the Works. But left to form his own business based in Frostburg. He focused on narrow gauge locomotives. His break with the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad, owner of the Mount Savage Shops, was amicable. He sent business to Mount Savage, and they sent him business concerning narrow gauge and mining equipment, which they did not manufacture. Its was a win-win. When the Mount Savage Locomotive Works Catalog came out in 1889, Paul's engines were featured prominently.James A. Millholland had come to Mount Savage with his father, also James Millholland, in 1866. He worked at the Mount Savage Locomotive Works and the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad, then for the Georges Creek & Cumberland Railroad.Paul's father was a Mill Wright, and Millholland's was a railroad man. Both Paul & Millholland became Master Mechanics of the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad. And, both men contributed to the state-of-the-art in 19th century railroads, and both had patents granted to them. Both were key figures in the Industrialization that was taking place in western Maryland and the Nation as a whole in the 19th century.

This book covers the topic of satellite control centers. We'll take a look at the historical development of satellite control centers, from the earliest efforts of the iconic Apollo Mission Control at Houston. The primary focus will be NASA efforts, but similar facilities for other nation's spaceflight efforts will also be presented. This book is intended as an introduction to the subject. We'll look at the evolution of satellite control centers to understand how we got to where we are, and we'll look at evolving technology to see where we can go. As technology advances, we have a better basis for 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. Now, we can implement control-center-as-a service, and there are global colloborative networks for command and control.

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 will help you understand the fundamentals of robotics and telerobotics for the space environment. It will point out what the robotic systems can and can't do. Examples of systems and case study's and design examples will be presented.We will review the basics and definitions of robotic and telerobotic systems, as well as the unique characteristics of the space environment to determine where the trade-offs lie. We will compare and contrast with underwater, military, commercial, hazmat and other terrestrial systems. We will not discuss CAD/CAM or manufacturing, which probably makes up 90% of the applications of robotics on Earth. We will review system level components, and discuss sensors, power sources, actuators, and computation and communication systems. Actuators will include tools and grippers. Necessarily, we will discuss simulation, task planning, guided autonomy, and autonomous systems, as well as system models. Today's robot systems are deaf, blind and stupid. And, we expect them to operate in an unstructured environment. But, they are getting better, as technology advances. Robotics are handicapped. in terms of mobility and manipulation, sensory input, cognitive processing, learning and the application of experience. However, they have better computational capability, better communications capability, fewer environmental constraints, and, certainly, fewer ethical issues. (Leaving aside the issue of military armed robots). Over 150 references are included

The era of the 16-bit microprocessor began in 1978 with the introduction by Intel of the 8086 and 8088 processors. Embedded controller versions of some of the general purpose cpu's were also added to the families. The 16-bit microprocessors were a follow-on to the previous 8 bit chips. They offered not only greater integer word size, but more address range, and faster operation than their predecessors. Initially implemented in multiple chips, the march of technology finally allowed these 16-bit machines to be a single chips design. Floating point hardware was developed for the 16-bit integer cpu's, and would later be incorporated into the same chip as the later 32-bit processors.At the same time, single-chip versions of some of the popular 16-bit minicomputers evolved. These included the DEC PDP-11 and Data Genera NOVA series. The 16-bit machines finally brought processing power to the desktop to begin to threaten the reign of the mainframes. Just imagine. A computer on every desktop. What would we do with that?

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.

The Nineteenth Century saw a period of rapid technology development, as steam power was applied to many aspects of manufacturing and transportation. People's lives became better, old things could be done more cheaply or faster, and new things were enabled. At the same time, machinery displaced jobs and switched the economy from a focus on agriculture to a new focus on manufacturing. A new age was being born, and birth involves pain, disruption, and change. Steam technology relied on the extractive industries for coal, iron ore, and other materials. There was a seemingly limitless demand for the raw materials and finished products of the steam age. A huge number of jobs were created, and fewer farmers were needed to feed the population. Vast patterns of migration brought Europeans to the America to share the Dream. Britain was the first to go through the disruption of the Industrial Revolution, and British Technology was the model for the United States. The U.S. looked to Britain for "lessons learned" on canal, railroad, and factory technology. All over the country, enclaves of technology sprang up, centered around the abundance of raw materials, or the availability of cheap power and transportation, enabled by streams and rivers. The elements required for a successful technology venture in the Industrial Revolution were: raw materials, labor, capital, technological expertise, and transportation. The cost of transportation touches all the other aspects. In England, a good canal network allowed raw materials to be shipped for processing, or product such as pig iron to be shipped to users from an area where the material was abundant. Capital began to accumulate when manufacturing of goods on a large scale became possible. Capitalism, with wages, attracted large numbers of laborers to factory's and mines. Finally, a small cadre of engineers and practitioners made continuous improvements in processes and machinery. A master ironsmith was worth his weight in gold, because he could apply the processes and co-ordinate the labor to produce the desired products. Wales became the major supplier of iron making expertise. England became the major supplier of Capital. Europe became the major supplier of cheap labor. In New England, the Manufacturing centers such as Lowell in Massachusetts were built near streams. Facilities in New York used water powered hammers and blowing engines to produce machine parts from iron ore. The technology fed on itself. These machines were shipped by ocean-going sailing ships, shallow draft riverboats, and canal boats to remote locations where raw materials were plentiful. The Industrial Revolution pulled itself up by its own bootstraps - It enabled the cheaper transportation and more widespread distribution of not only capital goods, but also the means to produce capital goods. The earliest industrial activities in Maryland occurred in the East, and near water. In colonial times, raw materials were exported to England. Maryland exported pig iron. After Independence, the States controlled the manufacturing ventures, providing them with charters, the right to exclusive use of a stream of water, and the right to build roads across others' property. The artery for commerce was water. Massive amounts of trees were cut to keep the furnaces going. Since the finished product, pigs of iron, were heavy, the need for proximity to water transportation was obvious. The industry's developed where the raw materials were in close proximity to port facility's. In the Western end of the State, vast beds of coal and iron lay waiting to be exploited. The iron furnace facility at Lonaconing used coke from coal), not charcoal as an advance in technology. But Lonaconing suffered from a transportation problem, which would be solved too late to matter. The coke furnace technology made its way to Mount Savage, where the first iron rail in the US was made. Later 100 locomotives would roll out of the Shops.

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.

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.

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.