Customer Reviews

Interstellar Travel & Multi-Generational Space Ships: Apogee Books Space Series 34

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Interstellar Travel and Multi-Generational Space Ships is a collection of speeches presented at some obscure symposium that lasted a single day.

As a result, this book lacks the continuity one would expect from a real book and is full of repetitions. The speeches themselves are only a few pages in length so no concept is really developed. There isn't much breadth or variety either. The speeches usually are either a "motivational" sermons or a focus on a propulsion scheme. However, there is about fifteen pages devoted to necessary genetic variation in the small population of an interstellar crew.

You will have plenty of back-of-the-envelope calculations involving some rather fanciful concepts. One had a 560 kiloton lens 1,000 km wide and a 43 quadrillion watt earthbound laser. Absent in these ideas were hindrances such as interstellar debris, radiation, navigation, etc.

I thought that serious study had gone into the idea of interstellar travel. It is apparent that the work involved is little more than intellectual doodling done during semester breaks or between class lectures.

After reading this book, I have gained little sense of the feasibility of traveling to the stars.

This book brings together papers delivered at an American Association for the Advancement of Science symposium in 2002. Several presentations address physics and engineering solutions to the problem of interstellar flight, with an emphasis on propulsion concepts. Others address social, cultural, psychological, and genetic dimensions of "generation ships" in which human societies would exist within large vehicles during voyages lasting hundreds of years. The final paper, by physicist Freeman Dyson, suggests that life and intelligence might exist on the icy bodies of the outer solar system.

The quality is very uneven. The science and technology-based papers are the most useful, though many of these ideas have appeared elsewhere. The philosophical commentaries are not very original. This topic deserves a more thorough study, written as a unified whole.

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This book was written by key scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center MD. It is a part of the ongoing Apogee Books Space Series.

Interstellar Travel & Multi-Generational Spacecraft

by Yoji Kondo and the members of the AAS

Instead of blindly following popular preconceptions and biases about matters that we have not yet had the chance to test or verify, examined in this volume is our current state of knowledge, as well as our present state of ignorance, on subjects related to interstellar travel. The science and technology of the future that would be available for building interstellar space ships would indeed be quite different from those imagined from the perspectives of the early twenty-first century. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to start thinking what it will take to mount such an undertaking so that we can begin exploring various scientific and engineering possibilities now -- rather than wait endlessly for 'the right time' to come.

1. Contents 2. Dedication - The dedication to Sheffield and Bob Forward. 3. Preface - Preface by the Editors 4. Overview by Y. Kondo 5. "Fly Me to the Stars' by Sheffield 6. Acknowledgements 7. "the Ultimate Exploration.." by G. Landis 8. "Colonizing Other Worlds" by J. Haldeman 9. "Why we must go" by D. Beason 10. "Kin-based Crews.." by J. Moore 11. figure for article by Moore (in Powerpoint) 12. "Genetic Considerations..." by D. O'Rourke 13. Glossary for O'Rourke article. 14. "language Change..." by S. Thomason 15. "Looking for Life.." by F. Dyson 16. "Remembering Charles Sheffield " by Y. Kondo 17. "Reminiscences: Bob Forward" by Landis 18. Untitled Contribution by Bob Forward

This book brings together papers delivered at an American Association for the Advancement of Science symposium in 2002. Several presentations address physics and engineering solutions to the problem of interplanetary flight, with an emphasis on propulsion concepts. Others address social, cultural, psychological, and genetic dimensions of "generation ships" in which human societies would exist within large vehicles during voyages lasting hundreds of years. The final paper, by physicist Freeman Dyson, suggests that life and intelligence might exist on the icy bodies of the outer solar system.

The quality is very uneven. The science and technology-based papers are the most useful, though many of these ideas have appeared elsewhere. The philosophical commentaries are not very original. This topic deserves a more thorough study, written as a unified whole.

This remarkable AAAS symposium represents the present best thinking of the best minds of this generation on what is arguably the single most urgent question facing our species. ("How shall we outlast our star?") Dr. Kondo and his associates combine impressive scientific and technical expertise with extraordinary prose skills to explain in clear simple terms why we must go to the stars, how we'll probably go about it, and some of the ways doing so may change us. It is of incalculable value to anyone interested in the future of the human race.

A very interesting book and a fascinating subject. I enjoyed reading this book. My only complaint is that it wasn't long enough. There isn't a lot out there on realistic interstellar travel and I wish the book had had an extensive bibliography on the subject. Well worth checking out for anyone interested in interstellar travel.

This book was written by key scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center MD. It is a part of the ongoing Apogee Books Space Series.

Interstellar Travel & Multi-Generational Spacecraft

by Yoji Kondo and the members of the AAS

Instead of blindly following popular preconceptions and biases about matters that we have not yet had the chance to test or verify, examined in this volume is our current state of knowledge, as well as our present state of ignorance, on subjects related to interstellar travel. The science and technology of the future that would be available for building interstellar space ships would indeed be quite different from those imagined from the perspectives of the early twenty-first century. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to start thinking what it will take to mount such an undertaking so that we can begin exploring various scientific and engineering possibilities now -- rather than wait endlessly for 'the right time' to come.

1. Contents 2. Dedication - The dedication to Sheffield and Bob Forward. 3. Preface - Preface by the Editors 4. Overview by Y. Kondo 5. "Fly Me to the Stars' by Sheffield 6. Acknowledgements 7. "the Ultimate Exploration.." by G. Landis 8. "Colonizing Other Worlds" by J. Haldeman 9. "Why we must go" by D. Beason 10. "Kin-based Crews.." by J. Moore 11. figure for article by Moore (in Powerpoint) 12. "Genetic Considerations..." by D. O'Rourke 13. Glossary for O'Rourke article. 14. "language Change..." by S. Thomason 15. "Looking for Life.." by F. Dyson 16. "Remembering Charles Sheffield " by Y. Kondo 17. "Reminiscences: Bob Forward" by Landis 18. Untitled Contribution by Bob Forward