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Title: Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization
ISBN: 1585420360
Author:
Robert Zubrin
Publicate Date: 2000-08-07
Publish: 2000-08-07
List Price: $14.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $2.64
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $1.75
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.17
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Zubrin's got it goin on.
If your really into realistic ideas and plans for space exploration and future human travels then you must read this book. I'm no math or science major but Zubrin writes to a happy medium that anyone with the enthusium for the topic can easily follow along with. Great book full of brilliant designs and superb desciptions. You'll be daydreaming for weeks after reading this one.
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2: Great balance
It is a great balance between scientific technospeak and general ideas. It's easy to follow though, because if you aren't really into and/or understand things like velocity and chemistry, you can continue reading and he explains it in another way. As you read it, many of the questions that pop up in your mind are soon answered. He does sound a bit bitter and frustrated on some NASA related manners, though it seems understandable. However, I do sense a hint of derision about the other sometimes important aspects of the federal budget that is sometimes annoying. He makes a convincing case about the ability and necessity of going into space.
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3: The single most authoritative book on the potential human future in space
Astonishingly imaginative and technically authoritative, this is the single best and most important book that exists right now on the possibilities for the human future in space. Full disclosure: I have written articles for books Zubrin has edited. Dr. Zubrin, a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering with master's degrees in physics and aeronautics and astronautics, probably did more than any other single person to change everyone's thinking, including NASA's, about human missions to other planets, with the mission architecture he came up with for sending humans to Mars.
With Entering Space, he lays out a full overview of the human exploration and settlement of space, beginning with a penetrating look at the lack of progress in our human spaceflight capabilities over the past few decades, and progressing through manned missions to the Moon, Mars, the asteroids, throughout the solar system, and then to other star systems. His vision is of a thousand people on Mars a hundred years from now, and millions of people on thousands of planets a thousand years from now. There are plenty of other books covering at least some of these topics, to wildly varying degrees of plausibility. But Zubrin has the technical expertise to walk through the physical and engineering arguments to show how thoroughly plausible his ideas are.
His wide-ranging attention also extends to economic evaluations, historical analogies, and references to past ages of exploration and to Enlightenment ideals of freedom and democracy. He embraces confidence in science and the human capability to engineer our surroundings to our benefit, rejecting the now common pessimism toward those ideals. The result is an encouraging outlook: the world is what we make of it - whichever world that may be.
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4: A detailed technical manifesto
If you're like me, you've always felt that it would be pretty cool (and useful) to be able to travel through space like we currently jet around the globe. If that's the case, then you've probably also ran up against a huge wall of "who cares?" whenever you try to express your excitement about the possibilities inherent in space travel. This cogent, well-researched book will help you do two things: Convince your friends that a spacefaring civilization is possible in the few decades or so, and that it is worthwhile. Believe you me - I have always thought that the problems involved in getting ourselves to Mars were more political than technical, but Zubrin makes it abundantly clear how we can get to Mars, the asteroids, and accomplish a host of other tasks, and all for pennies on NASA's current dollar estimates. Furthermore, he outlines the possible benefits to such programs, including the literally astronomical mineral wealth of the asteroids, technological drives, and the intangibles that go along with a new human push towards the frontiers. This book has rekindled the vision of space for me and every one of my friends who has taken the time to read it.
Highly recommended.
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5: A touch preachy, speculative and stodgy
Robert Zubrin is obviously dissatisfied with the state of affairs with NASA. He complains about the lack of funding for certain programs and the lack of direction from the top brass. He makes his point but he should have cut it short.The author seems to overlook potential pitfalls in his ideas. On using nuclear fusion for propulsion, Zubrin states that exhaust speed could reach 5 percent lightspeed, therefore Alpha Centauri could be reached in 86 years. This assumes that extra time for acceleration is negligible. For acceleration time to be negligible, the power involved would be well beyond what current research in fusion power suggests is reasonable. This oversight makes be doubt the feasibility of his much wilder proposals. I appreciate technical details but Zubrin uses a pedantic style of writing more suitable for a textbook than a leisurely read. Zubrin's previous work, The Case for Mars, was never so tedious. However, Zubrin does a good job on explaining many principles and concepts that would be of great interest to the space enthusiast--mainly on how to best exploit the solar system's resources while achieving inspirational goals for humanity. He also gives a concise overview of the debate on extraterrestrial intelligence an their detection. I do recommend this book for space enthusiasts, but they should take it with a grain of salt.
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