Final Study Guide

The final will be in class on Mar 21 at 10:15am.

The following are some topics/concepts that are important to the course.

• What was the Saturn V? What was its purpose? How did the Saturn I differ from the Saturn V and what was its purpose? What was new about the Saturn V compared to previous rockets?
• Describe the major stages of a typical lunar mission.
• What was the Apollo program? Describe the progression of the Apollo missions and their individual goals.
• What was the science goals of the lunar missions. What did they find?
• Describe the major components of the Apollo spacecraft and their purposes.
• What was the Apollo 13 accident?
• Describe the lunar rover.
• What is electromagnetic radiation? Which wavelengths correspond to low energy and which to high energy? What regions of the spectrum are blocked by the Earth's atmosphere and why?
• What phenomenon do gamma-ray observatory study? x-ray? UV? IR?
• Describe the major expendable launch vehicles in use by the US and Russia.
• Why are the best launch sites on the equator? What is a launch window? Why are they important for interplanetary missions. Where are the two US launch sites and what functions do they support?
• What were the two lander missions to Mars. What were their science objectives? What kind of searches for life on Mars have we attempted? What were the results?
• What are the eight kinds of robotic spacecraft? Describe their functions and give an example of each.
• What is the Galileo mission? What is the Cassini mission?
• What was the US Skylab program? Describe its components and the difficulties they encountered. What were the science objectives of the mission.
• Describe the early Soviet space station program. What were the goals and obstacles to the program.
• Describe the Mir station. How long was it operational? How many crew members did it have? How did the program end and why.
• What were the goals of the X-20/34 programs?
• What was the X-33/VentureStar program? Describe its new technology and how it differed from previous rocket programs. Why was it canceled?
• What is the Space Shuttle program? Why was it started? What kinds of missions can it support? What is a typical mission profile?
• List the NASA Great Observatories, what are their missions and wavelengths. What are some of the science goals they address. Why is Hubble superior to ground-based telescopes even though it is smaller in aperture size to most ground-based telescopes.
• What are the basic components to the US space military program.
• Describe the history of ABM's and the relevant treaties. What is SDI and what new technologies does it bring to the table.
• What is ISS? What is its total cost? What is its primarily mission? What are some of its obstacles?
• What are the primary problesm for interstellar travel? What form will an FTL drive likely take?