Introduction - Space education

It is a great pleasure for us to present this group of papers devoted to space education (SS-SE). The subject of a group of papers devoted to space education was proposed by Professor Okyay Kaynak of Bogazici University, Istanbul in 2005. He was involved in organizing two conferences: Recent Advances in Space Technology (RAST), held in 2003 and 2005, as well as being familiar with space-related education in several universities, Evelyn Hirt, Editor-in-Chief of IEEE A&E Systems asked us to solicit, review, and provide the papers that you will find herein. Our Call for Papers (CFP) was issued in July 2005; we were pleased by the response, and the five papers presented here are representative of the work being done today in European and US universities. The first paper describes the pioneering role of the International Space University, now with a permanent campus in France, which offers a Master´s degree program in space studies. The next two discuss graduate level programs in Germany and Turkey, followed by two from Denmark and Pennsylvania where both graduate and undergraduate programs are offered. The last two discuss undergraduate programs in Rorida and New Jersey. A feature common to all programs is the emphasis on a multi-disciplinary curriculum, and the requirement of a spacecraft design and construction project by student teams.