Customer Reviews

The next ten thousand years;: A vision of man's future in the universe

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Written in 1973, this classic is one of the first books written for a general audience that refutes many of the glaring errors of the doomsayers and presents a positive, balanced argument for the future of humanity (with facts, figures and formulas).

Authors such as Victor Koman with his Kings of the High Frontier and engineer-entreupeneurs like Dr. Robert Zubrin are those who, along with Berry, keep the hope of the new Frontier alive.

Topics covered include the terraforming of venus, faster than light travel, dyson spheres and a calm well reasoned explanation that even if he detonates his nuclear weapons, man cannot destroy life on earth permanently. Berry reasons therefore that we should stop wringing our hands and apply ourselves to planning for our future not only on earth but throughout the solar system.

Finally, how can you resist a book that includes an appendix entitled: 'A do-it-yourself Guide to the Special Theory of Relativity' that explains Einstein's theory of near light speed travel in less than three pages with the correct math in a way even I can understand?

A good book for facts about planets and space put into simple terms, but the book is now nearly 30 years old, the best thing about this book is seeing what people believed about the universe 3 decades ago and compare those beliefs to today's.

This book widens our perspective with serious extrapolation of our current growth in physics, chemistry, economics. Berry delightfully presents alternative ways to terraform Venus (seeding the atmosphere with blue-green algae). Then he discusses plans for Mars, and moves on to the biggest challenge to our future economy...no less than the dismantling of Jupiter and Saturn to build a "Dyson Sphere". Berry presents a fair assessment of the growth of Man's global, then inner solar system economies, and some insight into the politics of building such a sphere. Overall, a grandiose vision of the future which one keeps wishing to reread every so often. --dcm