Interstellar Travel: Past, Present and Future [Paperback]

John W. Macvey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1991

How we and alien beings may travel between the stars, between galaxies, and even into time.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Scarborough House (April 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812885236
• ISBN-13: 978-0812885231
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,960,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Read Over and Over..., November 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Interstellar Travel: Past, Present and Future (Paperback)

There are certain books that one purchases and reads over and over again without tiring of the content. This is one of those books for me. I purchased this book back in 1991 when this edition was released and I still pick it up about once a year and read it. I believe that anyone desiring an introductory, easy to understand book about interstellar travel (plus some other topics mentioned below) will enjoy this book as much as I have for nearly a decade.

This book is broken up into two parts: part I being a discussion about possible methods of interstellar travel and part II presenting a wide range of topics related to extraterrestrial life. Oddly, contrary to the title, the talk about exterrestrial life is the longer part. Both parts are written in layman's terms and present scientific concepts in a concise, enjoyable format.

The book spans a wide variety of topics within each part. The interstellar travel part hits upon the vastness of space, chemical and fusion rockets, slow moving generational space arks, space curvature, non-space (i.e., hyperspace), wormholes, blackholes, time dilatation, and tachyons. The author concludes this part with an incredibly enjoyable discussion of problems one might face while attempting to navigate while traveling at near light speed. The extraterrestrial life part touches upon the chemistry of aliens, estimating the number of possible extraterrestrial civilizations (i.e., the Drake function), possible extraterrestrial contact in ancient history, and a discussion about possible contact in recent history.

Yes! UFOs are mentioned in this book, but don't roll your eyes because the author does not get fanatical about the topic. He is mainly presenting UFOs in the context that some extraterrestrial civilization might have perfected interstellar travel in our past (i.e., ancient astronauts) or maybe even our present. I thought it was a good tie-in independent of ones views on the topic of UFOs.

One thing about this book is that it has primitive illustrations. They are, obviously, handrawn images. The drawings do get the job done and there are just the right quantity of them contained in the book. One funny picture is the illustration of the "Appearance of a star that has become a Black Hole": a square that is all black is shown. I still laugh when I see that one...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My own little universe, February 22, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Interstellar Travel: Past, Present and Future (Paperback)

Have you ever read a book from long ago that became a memento of your more youthful days?

I was 20 years old when I bought this book, approaching adulthood, working for the summer on my college campus. I read the book on my lunch breaks as a reward for hard work in the morning. There was nothing profound about this book. It just snared my interest the way no other book did because of the still childlike wonderment I had of space travel.

The author gave a mystique to space travel and extraterrestrials while retaining sound scientific principles in his descriptions. He discusses various scenarios regarding interstellar travel that I had not thought of before. For example, he informs us that the galaxy is dynamic and the night sky that appears today is different from what was there not long ago on a cosmic time scale. He gives data on how often sun-like pass near our solar system to provide an opportunity for a short hop earth.

On occasions he abandons scientific rumination to give wilder speculation or even abandoning speculation for the reader to take up. In the book are eye witness accounts of various strange events that gave the book an eerie appeal.

I would probably not enjoy it quite as much today due to the skepticism and sophistication that comes with maturity and experience. The book just glosses over some concepts, especially in dealing with technically oriented subjects as propulsion. I think the details he does give in regard to propulsion are a bit optimistic. A light read perhaps, but sure to tickle the fancy of a young space nut.