Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization - Softcover

Zubrin, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1585420360 ISBN 13: 9781585420360

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group, 2000

Synopsis

"Robert Zubrin is a true engineering genius like the heroic engineers of the past."
--Frederick Turner, American Enterprise

Using nuts-and-bolts engineering and a unique grasp of human history, Robert Zubrin takes us to the not-very-distant future, when our global society will branch out into the universe. From the current-day prospect of lunar bases and Mars settlements to the outer reaches of other galaxies, Zubrin delivers the most important and forward-looking work on space and the true possibilities of human exploration since Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

Sagan himself said of Zubrin's humans-to-Mars plan, "Bob Zubrin really, nearly alone, changed our thinking on this issue." With Entering Space, he takes us further, into the prospect of human expansion to the outer planets of our own solar system--and beyond.

About this title

Review

Humans are not native to the Earth. So posits astronautical engineer Bob Zubrin in the opening of Entering Space. We're native to just a small sliver of it, the spot where our species originated in tropical Kenya. We set out from that paradise about 50,000 years ago, north into "the teeth of the Ice Age," and all the ground we've gained since then has been thanks to our tenacity and our tools.

Zubrin reasons that it's time we cover a little more ground. Written with a boyish enthusiasm and formidable techie know-how, Entering Space urges us to realize "the feasibility, the necessity, and the promise" of becoming a space-faring civilization, of colonizing our own solar system and beyond. And Zubrin, author of the influential and widely acclaimed The Case for Mars, knows his stuff--NASA adapted his plans for near-term human exploration of Mars, and Carl Sagan gave the author no less credit: "Bob Zubrin really, nearly alone, changed our thinking on this issue." Entering Space plots the second and third phases of humanity's course--now that we've mastered our own planet, Zubrin says we must first look to settling our solar system (beginning with Mars) and then to the galaxy beyond.

With its practicable visions of using "iceteroids" to terraform Mars and harnessing the power of the outlying gas giants ("the solar system's Persian Gulf"), Entering Space succeeds at making the fantastic seem attainable, the stuff of science fiction, science fact. --Paul Hughes

About the Author

Robert Zubrin is an internationally renowned astronautical engineer and the acclaimed author of The Case for Mars. NASA recently adapted his humans-to-Mars mission plan. A former senior engineer at Lockheed Martin, Zubrin is the founder of Pioneer Astronautics, a successful space exploration and development firm. He lives in Indian Hills, Colorado.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1585420360
• ISBN 13: 9781585420360
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336