posted 02-25-2009 12:37 PM               

Remembering the Space Age: Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Conference

Steven J. Dick, editor

(Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-2008-4703), pp. xvi+465, hardcover, 52 black and white + 14 full-color illustrations.

ISBN: 978-0-16-081723-6

There is no doubt that the last 50 years have brought numerous accomplishments in the "new ocean" of space, harkening back to a long tradition of exploration. After 50 years of robotic and human spaceflight, and as serious plans are being implemented to return humans to the Moon and continue on to Mars, it is a good time to step back and ask questions that those in the heat of battle have had little time to consider. What has the Space Age meant? What if the Space Age had never occurred? Has it been, and is it still, important for a creative society to explore space? How do we, and how should we, remember the Space Age?

This conference proceedings book is an edited collection of 21 essays stemming from an October 2007 conference sponsored by the NASA History Division and the National Air and Space Museum to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sputnik 1 and the dawn of the Space Age.

Steven J. Dick is the NASA Chief Historian and Director of the NASA History Division. He worked at the U.S. Naval Observatory for 24 years before coming to NASA in 2003. He is the author of multiple books on astrobiology and other topics and received the 2006 Doggett Prize for Historical Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society.

Here are several ways to purchase this book:

• NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI), 301-621-0390, help@sti.nasa.gov ($55)

• U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) bookstore, 1-866-512-1800, ContactCenter@gpo.gov ($54)

• Private, commercial vendors such as Amazon.com

• NASA Information Center, Code CMI-1, NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street SW, Room 1H23, Washington, DC 20546-0001, (202) 358-0000. ($54)