| About the Encyclopedia Astronautica |
 The Encyclopedia Astronautica is the single most comprehensive reference for the history of spaceflight. It is a proven and reliable source endorsed by the Encyclopedia Britannica, library associations, NASA, the world's major newspapers and television networks, Internet guides, and leading space writers and historians. A list of their enthusiastic reviews and coments follows, concluded with a brief history of the site.
Endorsements and ReviewsThe archivists at the NASA history office directed us to your web site....you've got great info there. - Mike Klesius, Editor
You site is truly astounding - Miles O'Brien, Chief Space Correspondent.
Web's Best Sites - Comprehensive reference for the history of spaceflight from 1930 to the present.
the encyclopedia astronautica is ... interesting and indispensible...an invaluable resource... - Bill Keller, Senior Editor
...an authoritative and amazing site
...the Astronautica makes for entertaining random exploration - there is a staggering amount of information here (with an equally impressive collection of photographs)...anyone interested in the history of space exploration and exploitation would do well to bookmark this site.
Highly recommended.... Contains a wealth of knowledge...a must for anyone who wants information on manned and unmanned spaceflight. Keen use of links and cross-references across the site, browsing through the enormous database is simple and appeals not only to the professional, but also to anyone with an interest in spaceflight or who simply wants to explore. For the more serious researcher, there is an extensive reference list as well as articles on special topics and hundreds of graphics.
To Mark Wade, whom I have never met, thank you for creating and maintaining the Encyclopedia Astronautica, the planet's best online history resource
...absolutely packed with information...absorbing reading. The actual construction of the site is very good. I was amzed to find out just how much I had forgotten or had never heard of before...you will not be disappointed. -- Roderick S MacDonald
Encyclopedia Astronautica - highest rating - most complete resource for rockets, spacecraft, launch vehicles, astronauts, cosmonauts, spaceflight, engines, space history, & exploration
Most Popular Sites - Encyclopedia Astronautica
...the comprehensive guide to spece on the web...hard to top.
...among the best and most useful library and reference sites online.
Academic Excellence Award...selected as one of the best educational resources on the web
....a splendid job. It certainly becomes a basic reference for me. ...magnificent work. ... I wish I had had it when I was researching KOROLEV.
Encyclopedia Astronautica...The authoritative Internet space history reference.
I want to congratulate you on establishing a very fine site that provides a most useful service.
Let me do so by expressing my great admiration...Impressive! Fantastic work!
An excellent job....I delight in finding new bits which correct 1994 errors or illuminate items that were an unknown when I did the book.
Thank you for your excellent web site on space technology, certainly unmatched by anything on the internet. Your site is a great source of information, very well organized and even after visiting it numerous times, I still find wealth of new data.
In cyberspace, the Encyclopedia Astronautica Web site has gained recognition as a well-organized source of a vast wealth of information about American and Russian space exploration...Truly encyclopedic, this is a colorful and easily-navigated site.
..offers an amazingly complete overview of spaceflight - absolutely recommended!
...current and past information about rockets, manned space flight, and satellites typically not found at other space-related web sites!
...let the Encyclopedia Astronautica do all the work. An exhaustive compendium of data on space-exploration efforts worldwide, it contains everything a researcher could want...
Griffith Observatory Star Award for excellence in promoting astronomy to the public through the World Wide Web.
Cool Nite Site Award - an awesome site that must have taken an incredible amount of time and effort.
....really enjoyed your recent update on your site about Soviet space. Great stuff.
This is definitely a very nice site. Quite impressive.
I always enjoy the updates in your encyclopedia. Keep up the good work.
It's... beautiful! Well done!
Cool Sites for Kids
Mark Wade's account of Soviet proposals for piloted Mars expeditions is impressive! I wish I'd written it. Check it out!
Mark Wade's Encyclopedia gets better all of the time! This is fantastic work and at the top of my space bookmarks. Truly exceptional! A treasure trove.
Bravo! Most excellent and informative. Better than Jane's space directory (and it's FREE!).
Family First award..identified to over 50,000 readers as the best the Internet has to offer..
Go Network Award
Space Site of the Week
Mark Wade is the editor of the site and author of most of its unique content. Mark has been fascinated by space exploration since Sputnik was orbited. His interest in the history and technology of space flight is a hobby - his academic background is in archaeology and physical anthropology. Aside from the Encyclopedia Astronautica, his articles on space and rocketry topics have appeared in International Defence Review, Fliegerrevue, Spaceflight, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Modern Astronomer and the HBO 'From the Earth to the Moon' web site. His drawings and photographs have appeared in more than 100 magazine articles, books, CDs, and DVDs, and this web site has been referenced or acknowledged in most of the papers and books published on space history in recent years. Mark began collecting information on spacecraft and rockets in elementary school. This collection evolved over the years from paper to an Atari-based launch vehicle design program. This was followed by a Macintosh Hypercard stack on Soviet manned spaceflight. With the advent of the World Wide Web, it seemed that the perfect medium had arrived for sharing this information with the widest possible audience. There were several motivations and inspirations for the site. With the end of the Cold War, a lot of Russian language information became available on the rockets and space projects of the Soviet Union. Only a limited amount of this was being published in English, and then only in specialised publications. Through the site a wider audience can learn what 'really happened' in space during those years. The site is also an experiment in integration of public-source data fully utilising the hyperlink approach at the core of the world wide web. The site is stored in an Access database, and the pages are generated using Visual Basic code. This allows the information to be mined and arranged in a variety of ways to address particular themes. Inspirations for this approach included the original Internet Movie Database and Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. The site started as a modest Internet version of the Hypercard stack. In June 1996 it moved to www.friends-partners.org, as suggested by Dennis Newkirk and supported by Jennifer Green. As traffic grew, it was necessary to move the site to www.rocketry.com with the kind support of Greg Davis. Further traffic growth brought it under the auspices of Simon Mansfield's www.spacedaily.com. Over this period the site has grown from a few dozen pages and images to over 12,000 pages and 7,000 images. Visitors to the site increased steadily with current traffic running at 20 million pages viewed per year. Unique content on the site includes articles on Soviet manned spacecraft, including military, lunar, and Mars projects that were developed but never successfully flew. The site features the only complete single reference source on or off the web for all launches to orbit; all spacecraft orbited; all astronauts and cosmonauts that flew in space or entered training; all launch vehicles used for orbital flights; and data on many projects, spacecraft and launch vehicle designs that were proposed or cancelled before development was complete. Entries are constantly being expanded and updated. Contributions (articles, images) for the site are accepted, but contributors should check first and realise that no payment can be made (although credit is cheerfully provided). Major contributors to date include Jim Oberg (Russian space), Dietrich Haesler and Asif Siddiqi (Russian rocket engines), Ed Grondine (Chinese space), Richard Graf (gun-launched rocketry), Andre Bedard (solid propellants), Jonathon McDowell (launch and spacecraft images and data) and Alexander Zheleznyakov (cosmonauts and astronauts).
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Contact us with any corrections, additions, or comments. Conditions for use of drawings, pictures, or other materials from this site.. To contact astronauts or cosmonauts. © Mark Wade, 1997 - 2007 except where otherwise noted. |
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Encyclopedia Astronautica topic index 0 - A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - Ra - Re - Sa - Sf - Sp - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z |