Atmospheric Science at NASA

A History
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8018-8984-4
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 416 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 708 g

Reihe: New Series in NASA History

Honorable Mention, 2008 ASLI Choice Awards. Atmospheric Science Librarians International

This book offers an informed and revealing account of NASA’s involvement in the scientific understanding of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Since the nineteenth century, scientists have attempted to understand the complex processes of the Earth’s atmosphere and the weather created within it. This effort has evolved with the development of new technologies—from the first instrument-equipped weather balloons to multibillion-dollar meteorological satellite and planetary science programs.

Erik M. Conway chronicles the history of atmospheric science at NASA, tracing the story from its beginnings in 1958, the International Geophysical Year, through to the present, focusing on NASA’s programs and research in meteorology, stratospheric ozone depletion, and planetary climates and global warming. But the story is not only a scientific one. NASA’s researchers operated within an often politically contentious environment. Although environmental issues garnered strong public and political support in the 1970s, the following decades saw increased opposition to environmentalism as a threat to free market capitalism.

Atmospheric Science at NASA critically examines this politically controversial science, dissecting the often convoluted roles, motives, and relationships of the various institutional actors involved—among them NASA, congressional appropriation committees, government weather and climate bureaus, and the military.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Conway, Erik M

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geologie Meteorologie, Klimatologie
• Technische Wissenschaften Sonstige Technologien | Angewandte Technik Weltraumforschung
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technikgeschichte
• Naturwissenschaften Astronomie Astronomie: Allgemeines
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Establishing the Meteorology Program
2. Developing Satellite Meteorology
3. Constructing a Global Meteorology
4. Planetary Atmospheres
5. NASA Atmospheric Research in Transition
6. Atmospheric Chemistry
7. The Quest for a Climate Observing System
8. Missions to Planet Earth: Architectural Warfare
9. Atmospheric Science in the Mission to Planet Earth
Conclusion
Epilogue
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Conway, Erik M
Erik M. Conway serves as historian, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

Erik M. Conway is a historian at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, and author of High-Speed Dreams: NASA and the Technopolitics of Supersonic Transportation, 1945–1999 and Blind Landings: Low-Visibility Operations in American Aviation, 1918–1958, also published by Johns Hopkins.