Since the dawn of the Space Age, small cohorts of humanity have broadcast signals towards other stars, fabricated "space-time capsules" to "speak for Earth" aboard interstellar probes, deposited collections of "space oddities" on other astronomical bodies, and permanently incised the memory of our species across the deep-time legacy of the Sol System. Many of these purposeful "messages" are the consequence of age-old behaviors, traditions, and material practices using modern aerospace technologies. Most attempt to preserve narratives of human experience in social exchange devices for imagined, exotic audiences. Looking back upon this accumulative history of "messaging from Earth", how do we begin to interpret such an eclectic portrait of Earth for ourselves? Surveying and cataloguing the variety of these artifacts through a series of interdisciplinary essays and visual documentation, this volume chronicles our changing relationships, customs, and assumptions made within this material culture for our own eyes. What do these autobiographical accounts tell us about Terrans and our minds, set against the backdrop of our planetary history?

This is a completely updated and revised version of a monograph published in 2002 by the NASA History Office under the original title Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and Planetary Probes, 1958-2000. This new edition not only adds all events in robotic deep space exploration after 2000 and up to the end of 2016, but it also completely corrects and updates all accounts of missions from 1958 to 2000--Provided by publisher.

We are at the cusp of a golden age in space science, as increasingly more entrepreneurs—Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos—are seduced by the commercial potential of human access to space. But Beyond Earth does not offer another wide-eyed technology fantasy: instead, it is grounded not only in the human capacity for invention and the appeal of adventure, but also in the bureaucratic, political, and scientific realities that present obstacles to space travel—realities that have hampered NASA's efforts ever since the Challenger disaster. In Beyond Earth, the authors offer groundbreaking research and argue persuasively that not Mars, but Titan—a moon of Saturn with a nitrogen atmosphere, a weather cycle, and an inexhaustible supply of cheap energy—offers the most realistic, and thrilling, prospect of life without support from Earth.

The Instant New York Times Bestseller! Was an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author, has made it his life's work to find out--and in America Before, he draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion. We’ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago – amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago – many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere. Hancock's research takes us on a series of journeys and encounters with the scientists responsible for the recent extraordinary breakthroughs. In the process, from the Mississippi Valley to the Amazon rainforest, he reveals that ancient "New World" cultures share a legacy of advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated spiritual beliefs with supposedly unconnected "Old World" cultures. Have archaeologists focused for too long only on the "Old World" in their search for the origins of civilization while failing to consider the revolutionary possibility that those origins might in fact be found in the "New World"? America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization is the culmination of everything that millions of readers have loved in Hancock's body of work over the past decades, namely a mind-dilating exploration of the mysteries of the past, amazing archaeological discoveries and profound implications for how we lead our lives today.

As command module pilot for the Apollo 15 mission to the moon in 1971, Al Worden flew on what is widely regarded as the greatest exploration mission that humans have ever attempted. He spent six days orbiting the moon, including three days completely alone, the most isolated human in existence. During the return from the moon to earth he also conducted the first spacewalk in deep space, becoming the first human ever to see both the entire earth and moon simply by turning his head. The Apollo 15 flight capped an already-impressive career as an astronaut, including important work on the pioneering Apollo 9 and Apollo 12 missions, as well as the perilous flight of Apollo 13. Nine months after his return from the moon, Worden received a phone call telling him he was fired and ordering him out of his office by the end of the week. He refused to leave. What happened in those nine months, from being honored with parades and meetings with world leaders to being unceremoniously fired, has been a source of much speculation for four decades. Worden has never before told the full story around the dramatic events that shook NASA and ended his spaceflight career. Readers will learn them here for the first time, along with the exhilarating account of what it is like to journey to the moon and back. It's an unprecedentedly candid account of what it was like to be an Apollo astronaut, with all its glory but also its pitfalls.

Current state of play in astrobiology, including exoplanets and their atmospheres, habitable zones and the likelihood of evolution elsewhere.