Patrick Stakem

This book covers the topic of Astronomy in the context of STEM Education. Astronomy is the branch of Science that deals with other objects in the Universe. At night, we can see other stars, sometimes planets, and, if we are lucky, comets. Astronomy dates back far in the history of mankind, starting with observations of the sky, and the development of theories of what it all meant, and how it all worked. The initial assumption was that the Earth was the center of the Universe, and everything traveled around it. But, by observations, some "heavenly bodies" wander about in the sky, and increasingly complex theories were developed to address this. Later, when the Earth was dethroned as the center of the universe, it was understood that other planets and the Earth were in orbit around the Sun. And, the Sun was just another star, like those that could be seen in the night sky. Some suggested projects are included to get student interest going.

Unfortunately, we learn more from failures than from successes. This book continues an examination of a cross-section of engineering failures, and analyzes them to define the lessons-learned. It also presents some additional methodologies to prevent failures, or, at least, minimize the effects. The first volume presented a cross-section of failure studies, mostly drawn from the engineering and aerospace context. Each study includes specific references and a definition of the root cause of the failure. I said, "Let's try to learn from other's mistakes. It is less painful to learn from others' failures than your own." So, almost nobody listened, and I have enough material for a new book. We will see continuing errors of omission, errors of commission, and just plain ignorance of the facts. Since its publication, I have had more than enough material for a second book. The first book discussed System Engineering processes and procedures that can and should be applied to an architecture before the fact, and, unfortunately, after the fact as a post-mortem analysis. It is important to do a good post-mortem analysis of failures, and document them, for the benefit of the next generation of implementers. This helps to prevent the repeating of mistakes. And yet, we keep repeating mistakes, not building on our work, and going on to create larger, more creative mistakes. I will try to minimize the overlap in the books, but some times there is further information or corrections on material in Volume 1. A major new area of interest is self-driving cars, not just their technology, but the insurance and legal issues they introduce. I am presenting this from an engineering standpoint, because that is my background. But the concepts apply across all disciplines and endeavors. If your are responsible for a design, a device, a policy, or a program, you must think through the consequences. Always have a plan B. Always have a Plan C Always think about safety and security. Don't make the same mistake twice. Don't make a second mistake. I have included an updated glossary and a list of reference material at the end of the book, and specific references for the failure cases discussed.

This book is an introduction to Cubesats, those popular and relatively inexpensive modular spacecraft that are upending the aerospace world. They have been built and deployed by colleges and Universities around the world, as well as high schools and elementary schools, even individuals. This is because Cubesats are modular, standard, and relatively low cost. The expensive part is the launch, but that is addressed by launch fixtures compatible with essentially ever launch on the planet. Although you may not have much of a choice in the orbit.Student Cubesat Projects are usually open source, may be world-wide in scope, and collaborative.At the same time, professionals in aerospace have not failed to consider the Cubesat architecture as an alternative for small-sat missions. This can reduce costs by one or two orders of magnitude. There are Cubesats on the International Space Station, and these can be returned to Earth on a resupply mission. There is a large "cottage industry' developed around the Cubesat architecture, addressing "professional" projects with space-rated hardware. NASA itself has developed Cubesat hardware (Pi-Sat) and Software (cfs).Cubesats are modular, built to a standard, and mostly open-source. The downside is, approximately 50% of Cubesat missions fail. We hope to point out some approaches to improve this. If you define and implement your own Cubesat mission, or work as a team member on a larger project, this book presents and points to information that will be valuable. Even if you never get your own Cubesat to orbit, you can be a valuable addition to a Cubesat or larger aerospace project. Shortly, two NASA Cubesats will be heading to Mars. The unique Cubesat architecture introduces a new Paradigm for exploring the many elements of our Solar System. Best of luck on your mission.

This book covers the topic of the technology and applications of Embedded Graphics Processing Units. We first discuss what a graphics processing unit is, and how they have taken over the high performance computing market. We take a look at massively parallel microprocessor-based systems, an evolution from parallel mainframes, and see how this is applied to GPU's. Then, we take a look at embedded processors, derived from CPU's, and how multicore architectures are applied. We can then see how all of this practice was rapidly applied to GPU's.A major topic is the software to program and debug these unit, which are capable of Tera-mistakes per second. We will explore some of the commercial products, and applications. Fasten your seatbelt - it's that kind of a technology

This book covers the topic of Orbital debris, what it is, wher it comes from, what problems it introduces, and how to deal with it. . Putting a communications satellite in synchronous orbit will set you back 100's of millions of dollars. Once on orbit, you hope it survived the launch environment, and operates correctly. You further hope it works at least for its design lifetime, and as long as possible. This approach, based on good engineering design practices, lessons learned, and hope, it the equivalent of buying a new Tesla with non-rechargable batteries, and driving it until it stops. Then shooting it off towards Mars.

This book is about the topic of Mobile Cloud Robotics. Cloud Robotics emerged in 2010. This leverages the fusion of multiple technologies, such as the Internet of Things, mobile robotic platforms, Multicore Graphics Processing Units, and the Cloud platform. The Cloud concept involves virtualizing the compute element, as we'll explain in detail later. Mostly, we will focus on mobile robots, as opposed to robotic assembly, and warehousing. At the heart of the problem is a computation-communication-power usage trade-off. We will look at the integration of these topics, with a roadmap and a defined architecture. The Cloud-supplied services augment the more limited computation resources embedded in the mobile robot. It provides services on demand. These services can be related to data storage, downloading code, or computation. This allows a relatively simple and constrained architecture to have vastly greater resources. We will extend this concept. We can build a swarm of robotic platforms, not necessarily homogeneous, that can self-organize into a cluster computer, using, for example, the Open Source Beowulf software from NASA. There is no reason the Cloud server has to be static, it can be a member of the swarm. The swarm members will share an architecture, differing only in their sensor payload (This is one usage model). The Swarm mothership can host the cloud, wherever the swarm happens to be. I use the term "mothership" here to indicate that the robot platforms are deployed from (and possibly retrieved by) the mothership. The mothership is a supernode, as members of the group or swarm are nodes. With the current generation of GPU-based supercomputer architectures, the mothership can certainly be a Cloud host. It shares the problems of power usage, and communication with members of the swarm. Depending on the operational environment, these issues can be addressed. The more real-time operations have to be handled locally, onboard the various members, due to communications delays. Up front, at the architecture level, the load balancing must be considered in a trade-off with communications and power usage. The mobile platform must always be able to meet the goals, even if a bit late. In some real-time scenarios, late means wrong.

This book covers the topic of On-orbit repair and servicing of spacecraft. Putting a communications satellite in synchronous orbit will set you back 100's of millions of dollars. Once on orbit, you hope it survived the launch environment, and operates correctly. And, you further hope it works at least for its design lifetime, and as long as possible. This approach, based on good engineering design practices, lessons learned, and hope, it the equivalent of buying a new S-class Mercedes with a sealed gas tank, and driving it until it stops. Then buying a new one.We will discuss the history and the technology of on-orbit servicing, and the projects currently being conducted. We'll take a look at ambitious planned projects, and the enabling technologies that will make them a success. We'll speculate what this means to missions to other planets in our solar system, and the challenges to manned expeditions to follow the robotic ones. By developing a Orbital Servicing Infrastructure, we could extend the life of very expensive resources, and clean up some of the orbital clutter that is endangering current and future space assets. IOn addition, we can derive a stong business case for on-orbit repair.

This book covers an overview topic of what is popularly referred to as Rocket Science, seen as a daunting topic, but not completely incomprehensible. This is targeted to the non-specialist. I am not a rocket scientist, but I know a lot of them. I are a Rocket Engineer. I'll explain the difference later.The popular impression of "rocket science" as well as astrophysics is they are topics too complex for the lay-person. Well, if you want to work in the field, you will require a lot of physics, math and engineering at the graduate level. If you just want to understand and appreciate the topic, it's not that bad. This book could be used in a STEM Program, but it is not targeted to that exclusively. The author does have a book published on Cubesats in the STEM curriculum.

There have been spacefarers from over 40 countries, taken along on shared missions by the craft of the major spacefaring nations, China, Russia, and the U. S. The International Space Station is truly an International effort. But these were all professional Astronauts or Cosmonnauts. That was their job.At this time, there have been seven "space toruists," who paid their own way, and five "spaceflgiht participants," who flew on the Shuttle, or to the ISS. Can you fly to space now? The U.S. currently doesn't have a crewed transportation system.The Russians will charge you $76 million for a flight up on the Soyuz-M, if they have a seat available. You also receive training, and a couple of rides on the Vomit-Comet airplane, so you'll know what to expect in zero G. The Space Tourism Industry is ready to begin. Like all new markets, it will evolve, become better and cheaper. It's expensive now, but a few have done it.NASA is not going to do this. They are in the science and technology business, and are a government agency, A cadre of entrepreneurs, space geeks, and crafty businessmen have better, less expensive options in the works. Stay tuned. Keep in touch. This is going to get exciting. The book discusses options ranging from a quick trip above 100 km to earn the title "astronaut." to month long vacations at a lunar resort, where you can fly, with wings, every day. This is the new hospitality frontier.

This book covers the topic of the storage and communications of digital data for STEM. It is addressed to the teacher, providing information and pointers to information for developing a curriculum on this topic. Our technology is increasingly digital. Digital data is a quantitative value. It can approximate a analog (variable) or represent a digital (discrete) value. Analog data can be approximated in digital, to the accuracy required. Evidently, the word data in English dates back to 1640. There were references to transmittable and store-able computer information right after World War-II. References to "data processing" emerged in 1946, as "computer" began to refer to a room full of electronics, as apposed to a person with a mechanical calculator and a slide rule. Information is organized and analyzed data; answers to questions. Information reduces uncertainty. We live in a digital age, where everything of interest to use is digital - either sampled analog, or originating as digital. Color is continuous, a full range of analog data. What we see on a TV screen or digital camera image is sampled version of that. Our technology is based on digital; that's how we store, transmit, and process information. Thus our data is digital.

This book covers the topic of Manufacturing in Space, and Mining in Space, which is not that far away, and has actually been done on a small scale for many years. With permanent manufacturing facilities in space, near to lunar or asteroid resources, we will be able to fabricate facilities from local material, and extract rocket fuel. All of this can replace what we now need very large rockets up from Earth's "gravity well." We can build the next generation stations and spacecraft in situ, in orbit. There are some major advantages for this. Spin-off company, providing logistics services, will be necessary. Space will be evolving as a frontier outpost. We have experience with those. But, space is a harsh environment, harsher than the Klondike during the gold rush. Yet, the gold rush happened.

This book covers the topic of rocket planes that are launched to orbit, and return to a runway landing. The most common examples are the Space Shuttle and the X-15. The work on rocket planes began in Germany before World War-II, and resulted in operation squadrons, too little, too late. In the United States and Russia, research into the trans-sonic and hypersonic regions continued, with a series of rocket plans and their pilots. The most known examples are the Bell X-1 and the X-15. Spaceplanes can provide crew and logistics support to the International Space Station.

This book is targeted to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) educators and administrators. It is intended to show how robots in particular, and engineering projects in general can be applied to their STEM program. It is a train-the-trainer document, pointing out sources of information and support to the teaching professional who knows how to present the material at the appropriate level. This book covers the topic of small mobile sensor platforms for environmental data collection. They are ideally suited for STEM programs, and get the students involved in many issues of science.We can stare at computers all day, but the project that gets up off the workbench and walks out of the room gets your attention. Kids are interested in things that move. Let's use those to stimulate their imaginations.This book cover things that fly, float, sink, and travel on land, and serve as science sensor platforms. All of the hardware is available commercially. Some complete assemblies are available. Some platforms can operate in various environments, such as amphibious units, and co-operating units, such as a bot with an associated drone are also possible. Drones can serve as communication relays for robots on the ground, and in the water.What do these platforms do? That I can't tell you. Use your imagination, and let the students use theirs. This activity is not to build robots, or drones, or boats. It is to develop sensor platforms that return real data, that can provide answers to real questions. Actually, the scope is extremely broad, and I have limited it to projects for planet Earth. I have another book on STEM-Sats in orbit that can do the same thing from a better vantage point, and yet another that shows how to implement the same type of missions to other planets.

This book discusses the various NASA Centers across the United States, and presents what can be seen at each. Each has a specialty, and each has a visitor's center worth visiting. The guide also mentions nearby facilities of interest, such as the Smithsonian's two Air-and-Space Museums. We will cover all of the manned (U.S.) flight hardware still in existence, including some related aircraft such as the X-15 and the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. Not all of these projects saw flight, but some boiler plate or test models survive. There is more stuff rusting away outside storage buildings at NASA Centers or at Aerospace Contractor's facilities. During work on this book, two additional manned capsules were located.The second section of the book is organized by rockets and spacecraft, and tells you where exhibits of those are located. One pilot earned his Astronaut rating in the winged X-15 vehicle, and the location of these and their carrier aricraft are listed. We also show the location of the Shuttle Carrier aircraft, the moon rocks, where to view a launch, and other space related objects.