12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Science Faction, August 6, 2006
This review is from: Beyond Earth: The Future of Humans in Space (Apogee Books Space Series) (Paperback)
The Science Faction
Reviewer: James A. Wakefield, Jr., Ph.D. (California State
University, Stanislaus)
Stephen Hawkins recently said that we must colonize space in
order to survive. This conviction is shared by all the contributors
to "Beyond Earth: The Future of Humans in Space." Bob Krone, Ph.D.,
Kenneth Cox, Ph.D., and Langdon Morris of The Aerospace Technology
Working Group have compiled and edited a series of readings frankly
designed to make this conviction more prevalent. Although not
argumentative in tone, the book is likely to undermine factions that
(a) react to space exploration by placing higher priorities on other
human endeavors as well as factions that (b) distract from space
exploration by proposing cheaper ventures limited to, say, the Moon--
been there, done that! (With apologies to JFK, we should not be
distracted with calls to "ask not what your country can pretend to do
for you.")
With the word future in the title, the book had to begin by
asserting that "This book is about science, not science fiction."
Indeed, only a few chapters hint at the role of science fiction in
forming children's visions of space, defining the meaning of space,
setting space exploration as a public goal, and sowing inspiration
among the explorers, and the bulk of the book deals with functional
aspects of organizing people and machines to explore space. The
motivation for the book is not so much to provide a handbook for
space exploration as to allow the political "science faction" to
support the goal of space exploration by providing material to answer
both (a) the reaction faction and (b) the distraction faction.
For the reaction faction, important human endeavors that support
(and are supported by) space exploration receive ample coverage in
Beyond Earth. Chapters on leadership, law, governance, cooperation,
ethics, art, music, education, ideology, the "meaning of the
heavens," the soul, and human evolution are featured in the section
on "Human Factors in Space" which comprises roughly half of the
book. The answer is that space exploration "ought" to be done for
our own good, although a delightful child drawing on page 130
recognizes that our ability to explore space does not imply that we
should. "Is" still does not imply "ought."
The distraction faction is answered in about a third of the
book, "Science, Technology, Engineering, and Management for Space,"
with chapters covering resource management, risk taking, commercial
development, and exploration operations. These chapters (as well as
others in the book) take on the hard issues of whether long range
space exploration can be done. The answer, as might have been
guessed, is that it can--and not because it "ought" to be done (that
would be science fiction)--but because the technology "is"
available.
The most important contribution of this book is bringing
together a variety of answers from the science faction in one
source. Those interested in human factors (as is this reviewer) may
have difficulty with some chapters outside this area (as did this
reviewer), and it is likely that readers with different interests
will have difficulty with other chapters. This wide-ranging book, in
its entirety, is clearly not a book for every reader. Various parts
will inform most readers, and as a statement from the "science
faction" (The Aerospace Technology Working Group), it is valuable to
us all.
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