Blueprint for a Battlestar - Hardcover

Rod Pyle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781315930 ISBN 13: 9781781315934

Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd, 2016

Synopsis

Modern digital technology has seen gadgets predicted by early science fiction - such as videophones - become reality, and a host of ideas proposed in more recent productions, such as the Star Trek series, offer intriguing possibilities for the future. From the Terminator to the Death Star, this book investigates some of the most celebrated concepts of recent science fiction and explores the potential technology behind them, revealing that some are closer to reality than we might think.

About this title

About the Author:

A NASA and JPL insider, Rod worked for the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, CA, for 10 years, where he produced Launchlink, a public celebration of NASA's Space Shuttle in conjunction with NASA and FOX-TV, as well as authoring numerous handbooks. He has served as the Vice President of Communications for the World Space Foundation, a space-advocacy association based in Los Angeles and closely aligned with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. While there he was the senior editor and contributor to their two publications, The Astronautics Journal and Foundation News. Rod is a frequent contributor to many publications, including Space.com, LiveScience, NBC News, WIRED, The Huffington Post, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. A producer, writer and director of documentary programming for The History Channel and Discovery Communications, Rod also spent two years as a visual effects consultant on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and was a visual effects producer for Joe Dante's Warlords: Battle for the Galaxy for Paramount Studios. He co-produced and was the lead researcher for Patrick Stewart's Nine Worlds, a CD-ROM released by Paramount Interactive, and was editor and webmaster of the product's award-wining website for three years. He has written the widely-praised Innovation the NASA Way (McGraw-Hill Education, 2014) and Curiosity: An Inside Look at the Mars Rover Mission (Random House, 2014). Destination Mars (Prometheus, 2012) was hailed as "The best recent history of Mars exploration" by The Washington Post.His best-selling book Missions to the Moon, has sold widely since 2009 (Carlton/Sterling, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012). Destination Moon was released in 2005, and has been reprinted four times. Rod lives in Pasadena, CA.

Review:

"In Blueprint for a Battlestar, Rod Pyle takes us even farther than the book's subtitle promises. He not only explains the science behind clever devices employed in science fiction, but he explains how close scientists are coming to being able to make those devices... I recommend this book as an enjoyable source of information on a wide variety of real or imagined technological marvels of the space age."

--Loretta Hall, the National Space Society
"Blueprint for a Battlestar by Rod Pyle will take readers on a fact finding mission where the science is explained and the fiction just may become reality. Can it really work? For the sake of all those young engineers out there dreaming of a future filled with massive battlestars stretching far across the galaxy, we can only hope."

--Ricky L. Brown, Amazing Stories Magazine
"Blueprint for a Battlestar takes twenty-five remarkable and memorable technologies from the world of sci-fi, from Star Wars and The Matrix to Ironman and The Terminator. Each concept is explained and dissected to reveal the real science behind it. It's a fun book that offers serious exploration of some of the technology that could be common place in the not too distant future."

--Nick Smithson, The Review Graveyard

About this edition

• Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1781315930
• ISBN 13: 9781781315934
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192