Abstract
Most people, unless they have studied aerospace engineering or astrophysics, are not aware of the complicated mathematical laws regulating spaceflight outside the Earth’s atmosphere or between planets in the solar system. Almost everyone has been influenced by science fiction movies, which since the fifties have been showing spaceships as cosmic airplanes capable of performing hypersonic accelerations and breath-taking turns, engaging in duels with laser weapons and firing thousands of light beams into the cosmic void.
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Notes
- 1.
Ailerons are the hinged surfaces in the trailing edge of an airplane wing, used to control lateral balance.
- 2.
Feynman, Richard. 1988. What Do You Care What People Think? Mr Feynman Goes to Washington: Investigating Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. London: Penguin Books (Chap. 2).
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Spagnulo, M. (2021). Fundamentals of Astronautics. In: The Geopolitics of Space Exploration. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69125-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69125-7_1
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