A meeting on "Astrophysics. from Spacelab" was held at the Internatio- nal Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, in the Autumn of 1976. Scope of the meeting was to bring to the attention of an increasing number of physi- cists and astrophysicists, including scientists from developing countries, the new facil ities made available by the combination of the Shuttle and the Spacelab programmes. This book starts from that meeting and includes, together with reports presented in Trieste, duly updated, a few additional reviews on selected to- pi cs. In the first part, D.J.Shapland and G.Giampalmo (liThe Shuttle and the Spacelab") present the design and the programmatic data of these advanced transportation systems and orbital laboratories. Vittorio Manno introduces the scientific programmes coordinated and led to execution by the European Space Agency ("ESA Programmes in Astronomy and Astrophys i cs "). J. D.
Rosendha 1 (liThe NASA Programmes in Astronomy and Astrophysics") summarizes the activi- ties in solar physics, high-energy astrophysics and astronomy planned in the United States of America by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as well as the expected use of the space shuttle and spacelab in their first year of operation.