Thermophysics and Thermal Control

The growing need for the solution of complex technological problems involving the generation of heat and its absorption, and the transport of heat energy by various modes, has brought together the basic sciences of thermodynamics and energy transfer to form the modern science of, thermophysics. Thermophysics is characterized also by the exactness with which solutions are demanded, especially in the application to temperature control of spacecraft during long flights and to the questions of survival of re-entry bodies upon entering the atmosphere of Earth or one of the other planets. More recently, the body of knowledge we call thermophysics has been applied to problems of resource planning by means of remote detection techniques, to the solving of problems of air and water pollution, and to the urgent problems of finding and assuring new sources of energy to supplement our conventional supplies. Physical scientists concerned with thermodynamics and energy transport processes, with radiation emission and absorption, and with the dynamics of these processes as well as steady states, will find much in these volumes which affects their specialties; and research and development engineers involved in spacecraft design, tracking of pollutants, finding new energy supplies, etc., will find detailed expositions of modern developments in these volumes which may be applicable to their projects.