viii
Foreword
There’s a special symbol on the flight suit of the test pilots of the Italian Air Force:
a stylized human being ready to take off with two wings attached to his arms.
The dream of flying – ancient and contemporary at the same time – is in fact
linked to the myth of Icarus, who was the first among all men to “experience
flight” and therefore was ideally a precursor of the “air-men”, those who work and
live in the sky and yearn to leave the Earth and to observe it from above.
The author of this book makes an even bolder connection, pushing the meaning
of the Greek myth even higher than the sky, into space.
As a test pilot of the Air Force and as a European Space Agency astronaut, I
consider myself a privileged man who has been able to carry the image of Icarus
on my chest, on my flight suit and ideally also on my space suit when I performed
the EVA’s – Extra Vehicular Activities – outside the space station in orbit around
the Earth.
In the same way, I feel honoured to write these few words, as I think about the
meaning of Icarus’ dream.
With a wealth of rare details and facts, using a language that transforms even
the most obscure technicality into a clear speech for everyone, Marcello Spagnulo
accompanies the reader through seventy years of activities in space, from the
research and development to our daily applications, without leaving out any element, from engineering to politics, and from finance to diplomacy.
The author really succeeds in making the reader co-star in the space adventure
of humankind, transporting him or her to the time of the birth of spaceflight,
revealing political and economic backgrounds and strategies of the race for the
conquest of the Moon, unveiling the real meaning of technological choices and
engineering solutions, guiding the reader through seven decades of history of
spaceflight, switching easily from topics such as orbital mechanics to diplomacy
and politics, and using the faces and stories of those who have lived those experiences in person as players of the game.
Foreword
There’s a special symbol on the flight suit of the test pilots of the Italian Air Force:
a stylized human being ready to take off with two wings attached to his arms.
The dream of flying – ancient and contemporary at the same time – is in fact
linked to the myth of Icarus, who was the first among all men to “experience
flight” and therefore was ideally a precursor of the “air-men”, those who work and
live in the sky and yearn to leave the Earth and to observe it from above.
The author of this book makes an even bolder connection, pushing the meaning
of the Greek myth even higher than the sky, into space.
As a test pilot of the Air Force and as a European Space Agency astronaut, I
consider myself a privileged man who has been able to carry the image of Icarus
on my chest, on my flight suit and ideally also on my space suit when I performed
the EVA’s – Extra Vehicular Activities – outside the space station in orbit around
the Earth.
In the same way, I feel honoured to write these few words, as I think about the
meaning of Icarus’ dream.
With a wealth of rare details and facts, using a language that transforms even
the most obscure technicality into a clear speech for everyone, Marcello Spagnulo
accompanies the reader through seventy years of activities in space, from the
research and development to our daily applications, without leaving out any element, from engineering to politics, and from finance to diplomacy.
The author really succeeds in making the reader co-star in the space adventure
of humankind, transporting him or her to the time of the birth of spaceflight,
revealing political and economic backgrounds and strategies of the race for the
conquest of the Moon, unveiling the real meaning of technological choices and
engineering solutions, guiding the reader through seven decades of history of
spaceflight, switching easily from topics such as orbital mechanics to diplomacy
and politics, and using the faces and stories of those who have lived those experiences in person as players of the game.