ROOM: The Space Journal is one of the major magazines on space exploration, technology and industry. At ROOM, we share a common goal – promotion of peaceful space exploration for the benefit of humankind, all while bringing you fascinating articles on a variety of interesting topics. Our authors include researchers and industry leaders from all over the world, which lets us bring you the newest and comprehensive information about shuttle space history.
March 2016
Space Oddities: The Problem with Imagination
...female mathematicians as early as the 1940s. These women performed detailed trajectory calculations, yet their importance in space history is virtually unknown by the wider public. Dana Ulery, the first female engineer at NASA (hired ... on a celestial body other than Earth. Eileen Collins became the first female to pilot the Space Shuttle. Ed Dwight - the first African-American -astronaut trainee (selected by the Kennedy administration despite open...
September 2017
Australia’s unique space history
...working on the rocket range, is open to tourists and is well worth a visit for the serious space history buff. The Woomera Heritage Centre, in the heart of the village, provides an excellent exhibition that ... Museum, situated in the heart of the city at Darling Harbour. Australia’s largest space history and technology exhibition, it places Australian space activities in their global context. Its exhibits include an Apollo 16 Moon rock and ...
February 2019
The Space Elevator – an alternative path to space?
...failures. The rocket equation for chemical rockets results in only a small payload fraction. The space shuttle carried only one train-wagon-equivalent payload to LEO, around 27.5 metric tons (mt), or ...different cultures such as the Japanese Space Train can be found in “Space Elevator History Book” D. Raitt, at http://isec.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Space-Elevators-A-History-31Mar2017.pdf. and “Space Elevator History” by J. Pearson, Star-Tech...
June 2022
Military space – how worried should we be?
... (Warner Brothers, 1983) unmistakeably reflected the US government and media portrayal of early space as ‘peaceful purposes’. The Space Shuttle had its own dedicated west coast military base, Vandenberg Air Force Base. Full spectrum... not the case though, for space weapons, because they are the most destabilising and unpredictable element in the picture. Again, they are nothing new, as the earlier history illustrated. Such incidents have become...
August 2016
Are the days of innovation in global space over - or just beginning?
...Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts who are stranded in space after the destruction of their space shuttle, and their subsequent attempt to return to Earth. Space has been at the forefront of this and has ...the times. We must not underestimate the contribution made to the arts and to our cultural history by space exploration and space travel. Technological advancement, accelerated by the 20th century’s love affair with worldwide warfare, will ...
February 2021
Space archaeology - preserving our orbital heritage
...flake travelling in excess of 17,500 miles per hour is significant, as shown by craters observed in Space Shuttle windows. Whilst larger assets such as the ISS have Whipple shielding to provide a measure of protection ...the most productive scientific instruments ever created. Thus, the HST could be viewed as being as significant to the history of science as Darwin’s HMS Beagle, Newton’s ‘Opticks’ treatise or Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. Given the...
February 2019
Building a space museum from scratch
... of heatshield, materials from a Mercury spacecraft, and several types of thermal protection tiles used in the Space Shuttle programme. For a space-nut like me, it was heaven. The big crate had my heart pounding. It stood nearly as ...months the project came together. We built an exhibit that had a storyline, telling visitors about the history of space exploration, from the origins of rocketry in China hundreds of years ago, to the modern dreamers ...
July 2020
Lego’s replica space programme
... (probably for commercial, lack-of-saleability reasons). It could, however, be time to consider that icon of human space travel, the Space Shuttle, as it drifts further into the mists of history and rose-tinted recollection. About the author Mark Williamson is an independent...
February 2020
Preserving our space heritage
...cars, etc, but probably no satellites that have actually flown in space. There are, of course, a few re-entry capsules and a limited cadre of space shuttles, manned vehicles that were deliberately designed to return to Earth. ...satellite is still likely to need attitude control and thermal management to maintain its physical integrity in the space environment. There are also hazards ‘up there’ which exhibits in terrestrial museums do not have to ...
