Customer Reviews

Islands in the Sky: Bold New Ideas for Colonizing Space

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is an excellent collection of essay by the leading producers of cool, far-out ideas alive today. Just reading it will expand your horizons and help you look at the final frontier in a new way.

Some of the essays, such as G. Harry Stine's on Single-Stage to Orbit spacecraft, are on near-term science and technology. Other essays, such as "Islands in the Sky," are longer-term and closer to science fiction. All are good.

My personal opinion is that the asteroids -- not the planets -- are the future of mankind, so the Mars-exploration essays by Zubrin et al. I found less enthralling. But you Mars fans out there NEED this book.

The essay, "The Economics of Interstellar Commerce" alone makes this book worth the cost.

Although I enjoyed John Lewis's _Mining the Sky_ more (simply because my bent is toward the asteroids), this book is better written and required reading. 4 stars.

I'm giving this five stars for the benefit of the chapters by Robert Zubrin and Martyn Fogg, which are ingenious and daringly original analyses of astronautic engineering and terraforming, respectively - each is the godfather of his field. The other material ranges from curiously quirky but not well-thought out (on terraforming Venus) to the kind of worthlessly unintelligent and uninteresting speculations you might expect to overhear from some goon at the bookstore but not to read in print (see the chapter on settling the Oort Cloud). This book was assembled as a "best of" selection from Analog; in a better world it would have been edited by the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, which would have known where to make the cutoff. Still, the good entries are fantastic enough to be well worth the purchase price.

I found Islands in the Sky a very entertaining, enlightening and uplifting book to read. It boldly addresses a wide range of subjects dealing with space exploration and appears to come up with concrete answers! There is an underlying optimism in the whole book that given human ingenuity, anything is possible. This is a far cry from the many 'post-modern' books that crowd store bookshelves seeking to convince us that science is not the answer, that mankind is bad and its actions are always in conflict with the environemnt. This book speaks to those of us who believe that we are the masters of our universe.

Some chapters are too abstruse and perhaps only for the specialist, but most of the book is eminently readable. A must for every space enthusiast.

The book deals with ideas about making space travel easy and colonizing space simple. The first few chapters deal with getting out of the gravity well we call Earth with known science and equipment. The next deal with using the resources that could be found on the Moon, Mars, Mercury and even the Oort Cloud (as well as planting a few colonies here and there)with the knowledge we have and the equipment we could have soon. After that is starts to get harder to picture doing all this projects with current technology. By chapter 8, for explain, we are dealing with terraforming and star engineering. Near the end of the book, starting with chapter 11 we are talking about interstellar space ships and the economices of interstellar commerce. But by than, you think all of it can be done! Each chapter helps to hold up the next one. For example, cheap, easy ways to get into space would cut the cost of space travel and allow for the next step which is exploring the planets and finding resources to help the next step.

I find myself rereading this whenever I need inspiration about the future. Wonderful and radical plans for colonizing things like the Oort cloud, far past the usual suspects of Mars, the Moon, and a terraformed Venus. This is the first book I've felt like reviewing, because I really want to so highly recommend it.

A great collection of articles ranging from a detailed plan of how humanity could very well colonise mars over this century, to fascinating ideas regarding the possibility of interstellar travel. The articles form a coherent flow from start to finish.
The book is a good introduction to space travel. The reader will find details on how we can utilize today's technology to advance our presence in the solar system, as well as stimulating ideas exploring possible future innovations. One realises the great potential of space travel and the positive impact it will have on humanity.

Zubrin makes a very good example of how it could be done. The snag is, that he reaches so far in the future, that it is impossible to imagine it as anything else than science fiction. I would have prefered to have some ideas developed about the colonization of the outer solar system. On the other side, the section about Oort cloud settlements has been thrilling. All in all, it's a very good book and certainly worth the investment buying it.

Stanley Schmidt and Robert Zubrin have edited a better than average/good book. I'm a big fan of Dr. Robert Zubrin the president of the Mars Society I belong to.

I read but couldn't get into the chapter about The Hypersonic Skyhook by Robert Zubrin. Don't think it could ever work. I'm not an engineer and there were lots of difficult equations. Time consuming. If your not an engineer you may want to skip parts of this. I just think the idea is a bunch of baloney.

Mars Direct by Robert Zubrin and David Baker was great... super 5 stars. INMO it could really work using technology today not some possible super expensive weirdo technology that would have to be developed. Robert's Colonizing the Outer Solar System was great too, as was the Terraforming Mars section by Zubrin and Christopher McKay.

Robert Zubrins Magnetic Sail idea was interesting but again with difficult equations. For me difficult to follow.

C. Harry Stine's... Comes the Revolution was a little dry but interesting.

Some of the other chapters like Dr. Robert L Forward's The Negative Matter space drive were more like science fiction and too far in the future technology for me to get seriously interested in. More boring equations.

There is a part of the book about colonies in the Ort Cloud and their quest for energy and about how that civilization will be different than on Earth. Interesting but I am more interested in what may happen in my children's life time...like using Zubrin's Semi Direct plan for us to send 4 people to Mars to explore it for 1 1/2 years using technology of today and by using a multinational approch for it to be affordable.

Part 4 of the book was interesting but too far in the future like John Cramer's The Tachyon drive, and Dr. Robert Forward's Negative Matter Drive. Technology we are not even close to achieving... more like science fiction. Then the book gets into the real weird stuff like in the far future of moving the Earth away from our red giant sun or moving another star into our solar system. Great imagination, but get real, lets use something we can use today or in 50 years or so.

Islands of the sky is a good book but there are much better books like Dr. Zubrin's new Case for Mars...5 stars plus. Watch the 5 star DVD the new "Mars Underground". Also read some of the other space books I have reviewed.

I give Islands in the Sky 3 1/2 stars. Parts were 5 stars but much 3 star...so far in the future using weird, untested and unknown technology. Its nice to day dream about what maybe possible in the future but lets do something that we know will work today and use the limited resourses we have. We are in a deep world wide recession or maybe the beginning of a depression. Lets use pre existing technology, a cost effective method to send a manned mission to Mars and create hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs here on Earth, now , just like the Apollo program!

Lets use Robert Zubrin's Semi Direct Approach to go to Mars, explore and find whats there, (maybe extinct or live underground microscopic life, frozen underground water, useful minerals and more, maybe eventually build up a colony and terraform Mars. Also mining the asteroid belt and later getting fuels from the outer gas giants.

Thinking about colonizing the Ort Cloud, sending ships to the stars is far in the future, and sci fi nonsense like moving the Earth or moving stars is so far ahead right now to be a waste of time. Time that could be spent sending a manned expedition to Mars, colonizing and terraforming Mars, mining asteroids, and getting fuel from the outer planets in our solar system. Using chemical rockets with pre existing technology to get to Mars NOW, then nuclear/ion drive, mining asteroids and later when we develope fusion reactors get fuel from the outer planets. Thats all the room I have on my plate now.

This book is an overview of plans to colonize the solar system, taken from the pages of Analog Science Fiction Magazines science facts sections.

The sections cover several important areas, for colonizing the Moon, asteroids and Mars. The last few sections cover topics that are very far out. Some of these may not be possible. But, if even half work out, there will be Humans living near (and far) from other stars someday.