A Step Farther Out [Paperback]

Jerry Pournelle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1979

Essays on Technology, Civilization, and saving the world by Galaxy Science Fiction Science Editor Jerry Pournelle, PhD. Preface by Larry Niven, and Foreword by A. E. Van Vogt. From the Niven Preface: "Jerry Pournelle is our to make the whole world rich... He's been building the future since I was in grade school, and he's still at it." Essays include "Survival With Style" and "That Buck Rogers Stuff," as well as excerpts from The Strategy of Technology.
From the Preface to the 2011 Edition: We live in an age of marvels. Despite that, we feel a sense of impending doom.... That's still true... We could still go to space. We could still mine the asteroids. We could still take part in developing mankinds vast future. Indeed, it is easier to do now than it would have been when I wrote these essays. The unrelenting enmity of the Soviet Union has been replaced by other threats, some of them severe, but none comparable to 26,000 nuclear warheads. We have computers and the Internet. There is free exchange of ideas throughout most of the world, and the information revolution relentlessly expands that area. We still face the threat of famine, but it is not as acute as it was in the times when these essays were written. Communications, transportation, electronics, rocket technology  its all better now. We can still go to the planets.

We still live in an age of marvels, and its still true that the only limit to growth is nerve.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1 pages
• Publisher: Ace; First Edition edition (September 1, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441785840
• ISBN-13: 978-0441785841
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,135,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A prescient look at the near future, April 25, 2011

By 

Robert B. Thompson (Winston-Salem, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Step Farther Out (Kindle Edition)

This book, first published in 1984 and updated three times since, is fascinating both as a historical document and for its prescient take on where we would be (or might have been) 30 years further on. Pournelle's crystal ball was and is a lot clearer than most. As a top-tier SF author and political/technology analyst, Pournelle applied his imagination to the real world. Any differences in how things actually worked out are due not to any failures in Pournelle's logic and reason, but to failures of governments and businesses to do what needed to be done. And, as Pournelle (and Niven) point out, even in our current dire straits, there is still time to make this vision of the future a reality.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A remarkable look at our present and our future, March 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Step Farther Out/a (Paperback)

Among non-fiction books, one of the best is Jerry Pournelle's A Step Farther Out. It contains essays he wrote throughout the seventies. One of the main goals of the book is to show that we can escape the Four Dooms--starvation, pollution, overpopulation, and depletion of natural resources. How? By developing the resources of the entire solar system; not just Earth. It isn't just a fluffy, "let's go to space" dream, either. Dr. Pournelle goes through the numbers, demonstrating that by developing the natural resources of the entire solar system we can survive, happily and with our high-energy society, for thousands of years. We can't survive if we stay on Earth--we'll run out of natural resources and starve--but we will survive if we use our solar system.

Pournelle makes a compelling and entertaining argument in a book so well written you just can't put it down. He also reviews many fascinating scientific and technological breakthroughs and developments. I can't possibly do this book credit here. You'll just have to read it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A persuasive defense of space exploration, April 29, 2011

By 

D. Webster - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Step Farther Out (Kindle Edition)

As NASA's Shuttle program grinds to a halt with no replacement in sight, Jerry Pournelle re-issues his classic collection of essays defending the merits of space exploration, arguing that for human civilization to thrive, and perhaps even to survive in the long term, we must gain access to the vast natural resources available throughout the rest of the solar system, starting with our next-door neighbor, the moon. This will not only raise humanity's overall standard of living, it will also disperse our species beyond Earth's fragile biosphere in the event of natural or man-made worldwide disaster.

One reviewer has complained that some of the information in this book is outdated. Speculating about future scientific and technological advances is always a dicey business. However, Pournelle's track record at predicting the future is better than most; and his core argument remains just as relevant as it was three decades ago: we can't afford NOT to invest in space access infrastructure and technology.