Why I don't give a shit about coffee machine expenses, office furniture, etc:

Firstly, and this is important, Star Citizen is an extraordinarily challenging game to write from a technical perspective (even Derek says that they can't build don't have the tech for it). Extraordinary tech requires extraordinary engineers.

There is a long history of how various companies and colleges try to attract the best and the brightest. The first company that I know of which had to attract extraordinary engineers was General Atomic after WWII, which started working on Project Orion. Remember how your parents would give you pushes on the swing to make you go higher/further? Project Orion was basically that, except you're a spaceship and the push is really a nuclear explosion. Do you think I'm kidding? I'm not. So you're detonating hundreds of the most dangerous kind of bomb known at the time with specific timing in sequence: things have to go right. Therefore, you need the best engineers to work on it.

The facilities at the General Atomic campus were extensive, featuring an enormous library in the center that was shaped to be the same size of the spaceship they were trying to build. Other details can be found in George Dyson's book, but suffice it to say that General Atomic was able to recruit many of the Project Manhattan veterans because of some of these benefits and amenities: not all decisions come down to salary.

Google is a much more recent example; like General Atomic, Google wants the best. How does Google attract and retain the best engineers? Perks are a big, and well-documented, part of that. Just look at all these articles about the perks that Google employees get: https://www.google.com/search?q=general+atomic&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=google+perks.

Colleges do the same thing to try to get the best students to attend: they have large campuses with beautiful architecture. A state-of-the-art athletic center with more racketball and squash courts than would ever be used. A program to allow you to rent Picassos to hang in your dorm room. Hell, the school I work at has a parents association whose sole job is to bring the teachers lunch/breakfast once a month. I'd have left to be closer to friends/family long ago if it weren't for this (and other similar perks).

It's really clear to me that CIG is trying to do exactly this. I'm really surprised Derek hasn't mentioned this, but they have a full kitchen in the new California studio. Producers constantly talk about how they're working to make the engineer's lives better, sometimes that involves running errands or getting dinner. The mural on the wall helps people to take pride in their work (and is beautiful besides). A nice coffee machine and elegant furniture are ways to retain the amazing employees you have. That's part of the cost of hiring the best. Can you go overboard with it? Of course. Have they? Consider that this $20,000 coffee machine is less than 0.02% of their total crowdfunded number. They can afford it. And the employees deserve it.

Welcome to the real world, Derek. You can't just throw money at people and expect them to be inspired and give you their best. And you certainly can't do it when you're paying these people less than what they would get paid at other companies, no matter how awesome your project is.

Yes, it was posted already, but not in this way. I want to post THIS to them making them think they are going to that article.

Well for starters, there will never be "one Christian nation". It is as big of a war in the country (on a much smaller scale of course) than what other religions around the world are fighting about.

That's the first thing that got me on my way to where I stand now after growing up a Christain. I lost my faith when I couldn't fathom all the religions all over the world. I read today in Sagans Pale Blue Dot there is something like 1000 religions world wide (1996 standards too). I am not sure if this includes tribes as well. Any religious person that is questing their faith too, should at least try Sam Harris: Letter to a Christain Nation. Its a very short read, I had the audio book and it was less than 2 hours. And if that intrigued you enough, then try one of the many other great books on the subject. Or about astrology. Carl Sagan is always great to start with. That is unless of course--if you ever had doubts. We are not here to convert, but to send the peaceful message of letting us be free spirits without ridicule or persecution. And remember this, more Atheists are made from reading the Bible (and not making sense of the fallacies). Knowing what science has taught us about the Universe and our small existence in it. And what is now known no longer a theory--Natural Selection. You can keep changing the ideals for what religion now allows compared to beginning of it's origin. Or you can give in. It is the wave of the future, the free mind thinkers.

Question Everything!

Free thinkers are intelligent enough to question what we feel in our heart is NOT the answer. We learned our morals from our upbringings and treating others as you wished to be treated, and that includes not just judging without knowing the facts. We are not afraid to conform to what we know is right. Like agreeing with what 93% of all scientist now agree on...or 67 of the known Nobel Prize winners. That will admit of course. They all agree that not knowing enough to know the answer does not require conforming to religion, because it's not the answer. Even if you were to say you are a Secular Diest, you're not renouncing God, you're just seeking the answer to attest your final faith if that is you don't eventually move to the dark side...I mean free side.

Read another book. Be open minded and realize

Signed

ATHEIST!

/u/another_user_name posted this list a while back. Actual aerospace textbooks are towards the bottom but you'll need a working knowledge of the prereqs first.

Non-core/Pre-reqs:

Mathematics:

Calculus.

1-4) Calculus, Stewart -- This is a very common book and I felt it was ok, but there's mixed opinions about it. Try to get a cheap, used copy.

1-4) Calculus, A New Horizon, Anton -- This is highly valued by many people, but I haven't read it.

1-4) Essential Calculus With Applications, Silverman -- Dover book.

More discussion in this reddit thread.

Linear Algebra

3) Linear Algebra and Its Applications,Lay -- I had this one in school. I think it was decent.

3) Linear Algebra, Shilov -- Dover book.

Differential Equations

4) An Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations, Coddington -- Dover book, highly reviewed on Amazon.

G) Partial Differential Equations, Evans

G) Partial Differential Equations For Scientists and Engineers, Farlow

More discussion here.

Numerical Analysis

5) Numerical Analysis, Burden and Faires

Chemistry:

1. General Chemistry, Pauling is a good, low cost choice. I'm not sure what we used in school.
   
   

   Physics:
   

   
   2-4) Physics, Cutnel -- This was highly recommended, but I've not read it.
   
   

   Programming:
   

   
   

   Introductory Programming
   

   
   Programming is becoming unavoidable as an engineering skill. I think Python is a strong introductory language that's got a lot of uses in industry.
   
   

2. Learning Python, Lutz
   
   
3. Learn Python the Hard Way, Shaw -- Gaining popularity, also free online.
   
   

   Core Curriculum:
   

   
   

   Introduction:
   

   
   

4. Introduction to Flight, Anderson
   
   

   Aerodynamics:
   

   
   

5. Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, Fox, Pritchard McDonald
   
   
6. Fundamentals of Aerodynamics, Anderson
   
   
7. Theory of Wing Sections, Abbot and von Doenhoff -- Dover book, but very good for what it is.
   
   
8. Aerodynamics for Engineers, Bertin and Cummings -- Didn't use this as the text (used Anderson instead) but it's got more on stuff like Vortex Lattice Methods.
   
   
9. Modern Compressible Flow: With Historical Perspective, Anderson
   
   
10. Computational Fluid Dynamics, Anderson
    
    

    Thermodynamics, Heat transfer and Propulsion:
    

    
    

11. Introduction to Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer, Cengel
    
    
12. Mechanics and Thermodynamics of Propulsion, Hill and Peterson
    
    

    Flight Mechanics, Stability and Control
    

    
    5+) Flight Stability and Automatic Control, Nelson
    
    5+)[Performance, Stability, Dynamics, and Control of Airplanes, Second Edition](http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Stability-Dynamics-Airplanes-Education/dp/1563475839/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315534435&sr=8-1, Pamadi) -- I gather this is better than Nelson
    
    

13. Airplane Aerodynamics and Performance, Roskam and Lan
    
    

    Engineering Mechanics and Structures:
    

    
    3-4) Engineering Mechanics: Statics and Dynamics, Hibbeler
    
    

14. Mechanics of Materials, Hibbeler
    
    
15. Mechanical Vibrations, Rao
    
    
16. Practical Stress Analysis for Design Engineers: Design & Analysis of Aerospace Vehicle Structures, Flabel
    
    6-8) Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures, Bruhn -- A good reference, never really used it as a text.
    
    
17. An Introduction to the Finite Element Method, Reddy
    
    G) Introduction to the Mechanics of a Continuous Medium, Malvern
    
    G) Fracture Mechanics, Anderson
    
    G) Mechanics of Composite Materials, Jones
    
    

    Electrical Engineering
    

    
    

18. Electrical Engineering Principles and Applications, Hambley
    
    

    Design and Optimization
    

    
    

19. Fundamentals of Aircraft and Airship Design, Nicolai and Carinchner
    
    
20. Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach, Raymer
    
    
21. Engineering Optimization: Theory and Practice, Rao
    
    

    Space Systems
    

    
    

22. Fundamentals of Astrodynamics and Applications, Vallado
    
    
23. Introduction to Space Dynamics, Thomson -- Dover book
    
    
24. Orbital Mechanics, Prussing and Conway
    
    
25. Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, Bate, Mueller and White
    
    
26. Space Mission Analysis and Design, Wertz and Larson

Titan is Saturn's moon, and yes, its ice volcanoes are one of the coolest tectonic events in our solar system.

As far as we know, there aren't any solid diamonds at the center of anything. Diamonds are much lighter than metals and other heavy elements, and would not sink to the center of a planetoid. Perhaps some pre-supernova planets, but those wouldn't have any of the heavy elements necessary to support life. Once we are traveling between stars, it's the biogenetic substances--like water and unrefined carbon--that will be the most valuable and useful to mine. With space colonization it becomes a matter of sustaining the continuing expansion of life, not space ships, that is most important. Fortunately there is a lot of ice on moons like Europa, and plenty of other valuable minerals and metals in the asteroid belt. There has always been a frontier: cyberspace has come and gone as the lastest frontier: next comes a space station! Once we've colonized out to the asteroid belt, perhaps interplanetary cyberspace will become still another metaphysical frontier to be explored?

I'm not sure where I was going with all of that. It trips me out.

Have you read The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps? I think it would be right in line with your interests. It is the most mind-blowing book I have ever read, making NASA look like a bunch of idiots and literally turning galactic colonization into a rather common-sensical eight easy steps, beautiful in their simplicity. If you have a scientific mind, this book will make you trip hard balls of intellectual goodness. There's even a website carrying on the book's legacy by updating the material as new scientific insights arise.

I'm assuming you're looking for things geared toward a layman audience, and not textbooks. Here's a few of my personal favorites:

Sagan

Cosmos: You probably know what this is. If not, it is at once a history of science, an overview of the major paradigms of scientific investigation (with some considerable detail), and a discussion of the role of science in the development of human society and the role of humanity in the larger cosmos.

Pale Blue Dot: Similar themes, but with a more specifically astronomical focus.


Dawkins

The Greatest Show on Earth: Dawkins steers (mostly) clear of religious talk here, and sticks to what he really does best: lays out the ideas behind evolution in a manner that is easily digestible, but also highly detailed with a plethora of real-world evidence, and convincing to anyone with even a modicum of willingness to listen.


Hofstadter

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid: It seems like I find myself recommending this book at least once a month, but it really does deserve it. It not only lays out an excruciatingly complex argument (Godel's Incompleteness Theorem) in as accessible a way as can be imagined, and explores its consequences in mathematics, computer science, and neuroscience, but is also probably the most entertainingly and clearly written work of non-fiction I've ever encountered.


Feynman

The Feynman Lectures on Physics: It's everything. Probably the most detailed discussion of physics concepts that you'll find on this list.

Burke

Connections: Not exactly what you were asking for, but I love it, so you might too. James Burke traces the history of a dozen or so modern inventions, from ancient times all the way up to the present. Focuses on the unpredictability of technological advancement, and how new developments in one area often unlock advancements in a seemingly separate discipline. There is also a documentary series that goes along with it, which I'd probably recommend over the book. James Burke is a tremendously charismatic narrator and it's one of the best few documentary series I've ever watched. It's available semi-officially on Youtube.

Well, you shouldn't be 100% sure there's 'no' weight, either. Because gravitational fields go as 1/r^2 so even in deep space there are small, but non-zero gravitational forces acting on masses. Which means those masses have small but non-zero weight.

If you're curious about the details of how rockets work, a better source for information than flat-earth blogs would be books on rockets. And rockets are super interesting. The basics of rocket motion are mathematically fairly straightforward (though still not exactly easy: variational-mass problems are a bit tricky and require a bit of practice with calculus.) But then the details of rockets, from an engineering standpoint, and controlling 3-dimensional motion in a precise way is super complicated. So is long-distance space flight-path dynamics because of the motion of the planets. Things like sling-shotting around Jupiter for a gravitational assist.

So if it's something you're interested in, you can really get super deep into it and never run out of things to learn. Something like this might be a nice start, assuming you have a reasonable mathematical background.

Have fun!

STEM generates wealth. Good message.

But apace advocates have been saying this since the 1960's. Neil's not bringing anything new to the table. This 2012 testimony didn't generate much support from policy makers. Neither did the book he published in 2012.

Space advocates can point to huge benefits generated by research from the 1950's and 60's. Not all of it was NASA R&D. Some of it was military and commercial. A few of the more prominent:

Miniaturization of electronics -- Rockets and missiles needed compact, low mass electronics. U.S. funded R&D helped put American companies at the forefront of an electronics revolution. There were already transistor radios around when NASA formed but the R&D helped accelerate trends like Moore's Law.

Communication sats. Generally not NASA's but it's hard to imagine commerical entities launching satellites if NASA and the U.S. military hadn't blazed a trail. These are huge beneficial spin off from the space program.

Weather sats. Again, not NASA but enabled by development of launch technology More accurate weather prediction has saved lives, prevented property damage and enabled farmers to produce more food.

Will future NASA endeavors generate such dramatic spin offs? If that could be solidly demonstrated, it'd be easier to persuade policy makers. I certainly don't regard it as a given.

One of the rallying cries has been Colonize Mars! With huge, disposable rockets like the SLS. Basically Apollo rockets redux. The Apollo trips to the moon were about 10 billion a pop. It is likely SLS trips to Mars every two years would be even more expensive. Settling Mars would take a long sustained effort taking decades or maybe even centuries. Would policy makers support that sustained effort? An expensive, high profile program would be a lightning rod for policy makers that want to appear fiscally responsible. I'd give the program two presidential cycles. Agaiin, Apollo redux.

Some critics maintain the chief benefit of SLS and Orion is providing employment in certain congressional districts. Pork, in other words. I tend to agree. I don't think NASA is blazing new trails with SLS and Orion.

Many serious proponents of exploiting and settling space call for improved robotics and In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). Already British Petroleum is using remotely operated vehicles to build sophisticated infrastructure on the sea floor where humans can't reach. Should NASA invest heavily in improved tele-robots, this could potentially generate enormous spin offs. I can see tele-robot operaters donning their motion capture suits in their living rooms. No need to commute to work. Besides working on the lunar surface or on asteroids, tele-robot operatros could do work in the deeper mines, high mountain tops, the sea floor. As well as hazardous disaster areas like Fukashima after a tsunami.

Summary: "A penny for NASA" is too simplistic. Some NASA projects might have big pay offs. Others are likely dead ends. If we want to persuade policy makers and fire up the public, we need to place our bets on good horses.

>So "outdated" that you can't refute anything it says, or mention a specific ?

Touchy, eh? I didn't know that was your site, but it doesn't change my opinion. Though perhaps I should have said narrow-minded instead.

I'll touch on the three points you put at the top, for now:

>Reduce cost-to-Earth-orbit by a factor of 100 or so. Everything else depends on this. Probably means a new propulsion technology for surface-to-orbit.

Launch costs have traditionally been high not because of technical issues, but programmatic ones. The Space Shuttle is a prime example of this. If New Armstrong turns out to be fully reusable, as the plan is for the BFR, I expect the cost of space access to be drastically lowered - SpaceX themselves claims that the BFR will be cheaper to launch than a Falcon 1. Take their claims with a grain of salt, but I expect both they and Blue will continue working to drive down costs, no matter the time frame.

At the same time, though, building something such as a space elevator or laser launch system would definitely help drop launch costs further, but space elevators are currently impractical as we don't have the materials science for them, and laser launch would need a vast upfront investment. The military might pay for it - I don't see NASA attempting it.


>Find a place where we could build a self-sustaining colony.


This one's easy. We can build one almost anywhere we choose. In your 'Future' section you note all of these:

• Gravity. Human bodies do not react well to sustained zero gravity; animals and plants affected too.
  
• Atmosphere. For protection from UV, protection from micro-meteorites, for breathing, for manufacturing.
  
• Magnetosphere. For protection from cosmic and solar radiation.
  
• Water. For human consumption, for growing food, for manufacturing.
  
• Oxygen. For human consumption.
  
• Raw materials to make fuel. Need energy for transportation, living, manufacturing.
  
• Platform to grow food. Soil, nitrogen, other elements ?
  
• Raw materials for manufacturing.
  
• Reasonable temperatures. We can compensate for extreme temperatures, but that will increase costs of everything else.
  
  We don't need a planetary body to have any of that. I think you've fallen into the trap of what Isaac Asimov called 'planetary chauvinism' - expecting that we need to live on a planetary body. We don't. We have the technical ability, if not the funding or the political will, to build large colonies in space, where we can provide all of those above bullet points - with the exception of the magnetosphere, though full radiation protection is still doable. Take a look at Gerard O'Neill's The High Frontier for more information.
  
  >Develop a new propulsion technology for use in space. Carrying chemical rocket fuel around imposes huge penalties on every mission. In fact, eventually we really need faster-than-light (FTL) travel if we're going to go anywhere useful, but who knows if we'll ever get that ?
  
  I think you're partially right here, but only partially. We do have other options for in-space propulsion - among them ion thrusters and nuclear thermal propulsion. Somewhat more out there is mass driver propulsion, but that's also doable from a technical standpoint. All three of these offer much higher ISP over chemical rockets, though they have their own tradeoffs.
  
  Where I think you go wrong here is assuming to go anywhere useful we need FTL. Our own solar system is quite interesting enough, with lots of available energy and materials for us to use. While I'd love to see humanity gain the ability to go to other stars as well, you still don't need FTL for that. So long as you can accelerate to some reasonable fraction of lightspeed, you can go from star to star without expending too much of someone's lifespan. Theoretically, an antimatter starship would be a good bet for that.
  
  As I've been doing other things in the process of writing this comment, I decided to add these comments:
  
  Your comment on near-Earth asteroid mining: "Doesn't sound feasible to me." It is very feasible. About ten percent of NEAs are easier to reach, from an energy perspective, than the Moon, and many of those have a low return delta-V. Outside of that, while using chemical propulsion alone probably isn't the best idea, ion engines, mass drivers, and solar sails are all viable means of reaching and redirecting asteroids, should anyone choose to do that.
  
  There are also vast resources contained within the asteroids - we can tell, using techniques such as spectrophotometry, polarimetry, and radiometry, what they consist of, so there's little risk of sending a probe out to one and coming up dry. You can find more information on projected asteroidal resources in Asteroid Mining 101 by John Lewis.
  
  And I have to ask: why would you bother using a solid-rocket booster to move an asteroid? Seems ridiculous.
  
  Your comment on competition, where you talk about the money wasted on spaceflight: I agree, actually - the money was wasted not because there are no resources in space, or that it's too expensive to exploit them - the money was wasted because of a few factors: a government monopoly on spaceflight; regulations prohibiting ownership of resources (now we're starting to see laws promulgated permitting private use), cost-plus and FAR contracting, which drove up costs, and an overall lack of direction or purpose. Now, as commercial companies start to ramp up operations, and look for incentives to keep costs low, we should finally see a change in the market. Each time previously there were too many factors still prohibiting vigorous commercial development - most of those barriers are now gone.
  
  Your insinuation that unmanned probes are cheaper and more effective than manned missions:
  
  A few notes here:
  
  
• Robots have to make do with what's programmed into them. A human has far more decision-making ability
  
• Humans are more mobile than robots
  
• Humans can more easily deploy and maintain equipment
  
  You might like to read this paper about the efficacy of humans vs. robots.
  
  Exploration for scientific purposes should be both-and, not either-or. The more we move the economic frontier into space, the more science we'll be able to do, whether purposefully or as a byproduct.

Not directly related to SpaceX, but pretty exciting news, it could really open up the solar system (thus makes Mars colonization easier, so not totally unrelated to SpaceX ;-) ). This drive is similar in effect to EMDrive, but is much less controversial and has much better theoretical foundation, it's also less well-known. To see a layman's explanation of this drive, see: https://boingboing.net/2014/11/24/the-quest-for-a-reactionless-s.html, there's also a book: Making Starships and Stargates: The Science of Interstellar Transport and Absurdly Benign Wormholes

NIAC is NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, it's a program to provide small amount of funding for TRL 1 breakthrough technologies, this is the best part of NASA IMHO, really what NASA should be doing.

Haha... That applet is fun to play with!

First off, spiraling in or shooting way off are no the only options. You can orbit at many speeds and altitudes. In a perfect world, orbits are either ellipses with an eccentricity between 0 and 1, a parabola with a perfect eccentricity of 1, or a hyperbola with an eccentricity greater than 1. Wiki conic sections if you need more information of those shapes.

The ellipse is the orbit, obviously, and the Earth is at one of the focii? An ellipse will keep its shape without spiraling in. It will only stop unless near the perigee the distance between the orbit and focus is smaller than the radius of the earth (collision).

A parabola is the perfect eccentricity where the satellite will not come back, and basically will eventually fly away and stop somewhere, while a hyperbola will have some escape velocity that it will keep flying at.

The only problem with perfect conic section orbits are perturbations. One is atmospheric drag. Even at LEO orbits, drag affects orbits. The ISS falls a few feet a day, and requires frequent changes to keep it at altitude. Higher Geo-synchronous orbits have very negligible drag, but its affected by Moon's gravity more, as the moon has its own gravitational pull.

Humans cannot simply launch a perfect rocket from earth and have it just "land" in the perfect orbit that it was intended for (like shooting a 3 pointer from miles away). Until a satellite is where it needs to be, it requires small changes in direction and speed, but these usually aren't very large and usually take place when you get closer to the destination.

There are books and books of orbital equations. I am in my 2nd of 4 graduate level orbital determination classes, but a good starting point would be the wiki page on the vis-viva equation. Following Wiki around can give you a better understanding than I can in a comment.

If you really are fascinated by this information, and are a self learner, I would definitely go check out Orbital Mechanics. I used this book in my class and it explains it well enough to learn it without an instructor..

Audio Books are your friend, like seriously pick up something to listen to.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman


The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character


The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene


The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene


Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration by Michio Kaku

Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time: Great Discoveries by Michio Kaku


The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind (This one I recommend on the highest degree, personally I have read it 3 times)


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe by Stephen W. Hawking


Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan


Contact by Carl Sagan


Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan

All these books I've listened to or read, and I recommend all of them some more then others, I have tons more about Quantum Mechanics, Physics, Biology, Cosmology, Astronomy, Math etc. But I'm to lazy to list all of them here.

All the land is under the thumb of one government or another, so simply purchasing land will do you no good. The one possible exception is Somalia, but then you'll be just another warlord, and the guys already there have more practice than you. You'll need to create new land.

Start by donating to focusfusion.org. If it works out (and things are looking good so far) then in five years we have commercial small-scale non-radioactive fusion reactors producing power at 1/50 the price of coal. As a backup, invest in polywell fusion, which will be a bit slower to develop but still good. From there you can take two routes:

• These little fusion reactors will make excellent rockets, bringing launch costs down enough for middle-class people to get to space, with travel time to Mars of about a month. Start a space colony.
  
  
• With cheap plentiful power, you can implement Marshall Savage's seasteading project, accreting "seacrete" from the ocean and cheaply building a large ocean colony. (See Savage's book The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps.)
  
  For an even more speculative project, fund experiments on the Woodward Effect, which, if Einstein and Mach were right, could reduce launch costs to almost nothing and get us to Mars in a couple days, and Saturn in a week.
  
  Since you're proposing a massive land purchase, perhaps you have massive funds to do this sort of thing. You could get your libertarian nation without hassling with legacy governments, and incidentally, save the world.
  
  If you don't have the massive funds yourself, start a foundation and get a big group of people together to do it.
  
  
  

Not sure which version of the TV series you are getting, but on my DVD copy, at the end of each episode they have either Carl or Anne Druyan (his wife) giving an "Update Since Cosmos Was Aired". These were filmed somewhere close to 94 when he passed, so they're still a bit out of date from today, but still nice to see him realize some of the fascinating discoveries since.

Edit: If you enjoyed Cosmos, I'd highly recommend Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. It's pretty much a sequel to Cosmos, where Sagan contemplates the far future, and some of the possible means for mankind to explore the universe.

It wasn't well worded. His point is that a great argument can be made that we have had both the technological and financial capability to start sending humans to Mars on the regular since the 1980's. What we've lacked is only the political and social will to do so.

NASA often comes up with fantastic new excuses for this, some more valid than others. "We need to learn more about the long term physiological effects" is valid, but is mostly invalidated by the tremendous amount of research that has already been done. When do we have, "enough"?

Saying we need this hibernation technology to do it is a lot like saying we need a better propulsion system to do it. We don't. Would it be nice? Sure. Is it an excuse for not going? Hell no.

For a much more in-depth analysis of this, and for a look at what is in many opinions a vastly superior way to do approach this, check out that book.

Amazon link.

Edit: As an added note, Elon Musk has a similar outlook. The implementation he's seeking is significantly different, but it has the same attitude. But unlike Zubrin, Musk had the capital to say, "screw it, I'll do it myself".

The original Cosmos book by Sagan might be good here. If your friend likes that, follow up with The Pale Blue Dot.

If you want to to give your friend a taste, direct him to the Sagan Series, specifically, part 3: A reassuring Fable.

Your friend might also benefit from seeing Science Saved My Soul.

I work in the lab that is cited in your [3] reference. They actually cite the paper incorrectly. It should be Alberts, not Alperts. Check here for more and newer references. Be sure to check out the Ronca papers and the awesome NASA patch as well. The experiment found that the rat pups' vestibular systems did not develop properly. Once returned to earth, pups would not right themselves when dropped on their backs into an aquarium whereas pups not gestated in microgravity will roll before hitting the bottom. Mothers showed atrophy in muscles that are used to hold them off of the ground but, interestingly, had more muscle growth in areas that allowed them to turn at the core. Since every surface of the cage is essentially a floor they rotated along their longitudinal axis repeatedly. There were also neurological changes but I don't remember the details well enough to be able to elaborate without reading the papers again.

EDIT: This book is a pretty great read on a variety of "people in space" topics including, in part, the above experiments.

hijacking top comment to put in a shameless plug for Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars, an awesome discussion of why we need to go to Mars.

as /u/deanoyj says, it has all the things we need for an industrial civilisation, and also, due to a quirk of interplanetary mechanics, it doesn't cost much more fuel to go to Mars compared to going to the moon, just more time.

Mars has everything we need, is (relatively) easy to get to, and can act as a halfway station to the asteroid belt, a vast untapped wealth of raw metals and resources. Bonus: colonising mars will force the settlers to recycle everything, which will give them a strong incentive to invent things that would be very useful down here on earth.

Seriously, go buy the book, Zubrin explains all the issues in detail and so much better than I ever could. I went in thinking we should go to the moon, and came out convinced we need to go to Mars, and we can do it fairly cheaply, if we accept some modest risks.

Hi Colonel Aldrin!

I have a question in three parts.

1. You've said you would be in favor of a one-man one-way trip to Mars, and recently released a book on the subject. How do you feel about SpaceX attempting to beat your goals for mars colonization by roughly a decade?
   
   
2. What are your general feelings about space shifting from the domain of grand ideologies and large governmental budgets to the domain of profit-incentives and privatized contractors? In your estimation, can the two coexist?
   
   
3. How would you influence (or like to influence) the selection of a first person on Mars?
   
   It's an incredible honor and dream come true to be able to communicate with you. We truly live in a fantastic era.

I highly recommend Tom Kelly's (LM Project Manager) book documenting the creation of these awesome machines.

Also, the episode Spider of the HBO mini series From the Earth to the Moon is based on the book. It is also wonderful (as is the whole series).

Many thanks to your grandfather and the whole LM team for their truly amazing accomplishment.

In no particular order but all of the following are great.

• Skunk Works by Ben Rich - I reviewed it here
  
• Ignition! - It's an informal history of liquid rocket propellant and I did a more in depth review of it here
  
• The Design of Everyday Things - A book about how objects are designed. It changed how I look at the world and approach design. It took me few tries to get into it the first time.
  
• Introduction to Astrodynamics by Battin - A great textbook on the basics of astrodynamics that is both easy enough for undergrads to start, and rigorous enough to keep you interested as your math skills improve in grad school and later.

Totally get it. I have had these moments myself. The world IS huge but more important, we are tiny. Very very tiny. Read Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. If you think you’re tiny compared to the Pacific, just imagine how tiny we are compared to the rest of our galaxy... or our universe!

Once we come to acceptance of our existence, we can come back down and live our life with a purpose to love and help each other. Think about how insignificant every war ever fought on earth is to the rest of the universe. But if we can help make each other’s lives better, that’s pretty cool.

Ok, the physics is one thing, but the psychology is another!

I was reading Packing for Mars today. She contrasted accounts from non-orbit spacewalking and orbital spacewalking: it sounds like while the Apollo mission spacewalks were euphoric and peaceful, orbital spacewalking often comes with a strong sensation of, well, falling. If I recall correctly, the visual stimuli cause most of the panic.

Packing for Mars is a great book, btw. I highly recommend the book and others by Mary Roach. I don't have the copy with me, but perhaps someone who does can give more details on this part.

The book The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps talks about a suit that is made from a material similar to lycra.

The anthology Armored has a bunch of stories about armored suits, and possible variations from those.

Imagine the suits to vary depending on mission and MOS. Infantry, navigation, logistics, engineering etc.


If we get all fancy, lets imagine that they are all made of smart matter, or quantum dots, or some sort of mix that allows high variability, adaptation, low weight, and lots of energy available to do the sort of stuff our hero would need doing.

Remember the utility fog in "Quantum Thief"? I imagine that these new suits would be pretty much like that, fast reaction times, not in the way unless needed, light, flexible and extremely expensive. Also, failure ought to be benign as to protect until rescued.

You're welcome.

If you would like to learn a bit more about this kinda thing and the engineering behind spacecraft I can recommend a couple of good books:

How Spacecraft Fly: Spaceflight Without Formulae is a good intro.
If you are looking for a bit more Spacecraft Systems Engineering goes into more detail but requires some understanding of calculus. For both Google can be your friend for finding sources.

Flick through even just the first one and you'll gain a new perspective when playing KSP on what everything does and why it is needed!

After looking through the Q&A on this thread, I noticed a trend in the type of questions asked. If the weird and often unspoken trivia of space travel interests you, I highly recommend reading Mary Roach's "Packing For Mars".

It is very nicely researched and you will probably find answers to many of the unanswered questions here. It is a New York Times best seller, and it is am amazing and amusing book.

Fly Me to the Moon, about non standard spacecraft trajectories has been sitting on my shelf, think thats gonna be the next book I read.
Mary Roach writes great nonfiction, but it tends to be more biology/anthropology.
Project Orion, a book about proposed nuclear powered space craft was excellent as well.
Lunar Base Handbook is more just a collection of papers, but its fascinating.

I know just the one! 'How Apollo Flew to the Moon' by David Woods.

https://www.amazon.ca/Apollo-Flew-Moon-David-Woods/dp/1441971785

It follows an entire mission through from liftoff to splashdown, and walks you through every element and how it worked. It has some anecdotal stuff from astronauts to keep it human, but it's almost entirely focused on the technology. It was a fantastic read, I loved it.

Your link got me to purchase the current version of that book and Introduction to Space Dynamics. I'm working through the latter, though, as I found Bate's book completely beyond me–though good reading for the bit I did. Intro to Space Dynamics is proving very difficult, but I'm at least making some progress and feel like I have a chance at understanding it.

In short, thank you!

This question gets asked all the time on this sub. I did a search for the term books and compiled this list from the dozens of previous answers:

How to Read the Solar System: A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Christ North and Paul Abel.


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.


A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan.


Foundations of Astrophysics by Barbara Ryden and Bradley Peterson.


Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins.


An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield.


You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station by Chris Hadfield.


Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the Space Transportation System by Dennis Jenkins.


Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Chapline, Hale, Lane, and Lula.


No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time by Claus Jensen.


Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin.


A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.


Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA by Amy Teitel.


Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.


The Scientific Exploration of Venus by Fredric Taylor.


The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.


Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her by Rowland White and Richard Truly.


An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley Carroll and Dale Ostlie.


Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space by Willy Ley.


Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Clark.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.


Russia in Space by Anatoly Zak.


Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment by John Lewis.


Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis.


Asteroid Mining: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John Lewis.


Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.


The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe Report by Timothy Ferris.


Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandries by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson.


The Martian by Andy Weir.


Packing for Mars:The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach.


The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White.


Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.


The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.


Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Oddyssey by Joseph Allen.


International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by Hopkins, Hopkins, and Isakowitz.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene.


How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin.


This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William Burrows.


The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan.


Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz.


Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.


The end

PS - /u/DDE93 this list has all the links.

Unfortunately orbital mechanics gets really complex really quickly. Some good textbooks on the maths of spaceflight are

• Astronautics, by Ulrich Walter. Walter is a German astronaut, physicist and professor. If I remember correctly, he tries to make the physics of spaceflight interesting via pop culture references and stories from his personal experience.
  
  
• An Introduction to the Mathematics and Methods of Astrodynamics, by R. H. Battin. Battin's work in orbital mechanics is unparalled, but make no mistake: this is an advanced mathematics textbook in disguise.
  
  
• Orbital Mechanics, by J. E. Prussing and B. A. Conway. This book is dense: in 200 pages it summarizes what Walter needs 500+ to cover. It's my favourite reference text but, as a professor of mine once put it, it's better to read it after you've understood the subject thoroughly.
  
  Keep in mind that all of the above are textbooks at the advanced undergrad/first-year grad level.
  
  I'm not aware of simpler books about spaceflight. It would be grand to have something akin to Anderson's Introduction to Flight for space; if anyone's aware of such a book, I would be more than glad myself to discover it!

These were the 3 I picked up.

This one seems to be the most popular, probably because of it's publication timeframe, 1971. Not too early, not too late.

This is an earlier textbook and is considered a classic at this point. Still useful.

While less popular (and more expensive), I found this one to be my favorite. Hard to say why, some combination of layout, examples, and teaching style. The fact that it was also published in my lifetime, unlike the other 2, might have something to do with it as well in terms of language, etc.

But take /u/The_Mother_of_Robots advice and don't do it. This is a slippery slope thick atmosphere in a deep gravity well. There is no Lagrange point, just the abyss.

Hey, falingodingo, here is a book that might interest you, Colonizing the galaxy in eight easy steps. While it is outlandish in the extreme, it also has this impossible grandiose vision of easy space exploration. I do think that, if we humans wanted to go to space we would achieve it through fast innovations and cheap designs.

Even if it is not volunteer anything, even it is for profit, we could go spending these 150billion or 1 trillion or whatever. But since there is no need to go, no need to explore (sadly) there is no incentive.

Well, we can always go in the Chinese or Indian ships, many years from now.

This is one of the places.

Basically, in short form, the Lunar Module (LM) was actually built from two stages: the Descent Stage and the Ascent Stage.

Each stage had its own independent rocket engine. The Descent Stage rocket engine was used to take the LM out of lunar orbit and land on the moon. The Ascent Stage rocket engine, which, again, was entirely separate from the Descent Stage rocket engine, was used to launch just the Ascent Stage back into lunar orbit.

The Ascent Stage contained the pressurized crew cabin, as well as most of the electronics to actually control the combined Lunar Module.

So, the combination of the Ascent Stage's independent rocket engine, along with the computer and guidance/control systems built into the Ascent Stage allowed it to successfully lift off the moon and rendezvous with the CSM.

If you want more details, there are numerous websites and books that can go into more detail than I possibly could.

One book in particular, "How Apollo Flew to the Moon", goes into considerable detail on the entire Apollo system, including the LM:

http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-Springer-Praxis-Books-Exploration/dp/1441971785/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347300598&sr=8-2&keywords=how+apollo+flew+to+the+moon

A bit more googling will get you more details. Also try the Wikipedia pages on Apollo and the LM for more info and links to additional details.

Hope that helps

EDIT:

If you want another website from which to access additional information, try the "Beyond Apollo" website, http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/beyondapollo/

Also, look at these Youtube videos, which are actual NASA movies which describe different parts of the Apollo missions:

Lunar Orbit rendezvous, part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuA5xNfYUFo&feature=relmfu


Launch Windows for Apollo Lunar missions (i.e. why did they have to launch at specific times on specific dates?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzthaO29tNY&feature=relmfu

Apollo atmospheric re-entry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-6VQsVoc1I&feature=relmfu

Thank you :) If you're looking for some rabbit holes, and if it's not gauche to recommend my own work, I've written at length about a few different aspects of the Apollo program:

Going boldly: Behind the scenes at NASA’s hallowed Mission Control Center

Apollo Flight Controller 101: Every console explained

No, a “checklist error” did not almost derail the first moon landing

45 years after Apollo 13: Ars looks at what went wrong and why

How NASA brought the monstrous F-1 “moon rocket” engine back to life

Putting my own writing aside and focusing on real authoritative sources, there's also the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. Between that and its companion site, the Apollo Flight Journal, you have a carefully annotated and curated collection of every transmission, photograph, spoken word, and artifact from the entire Apollo program. Warning: you can lose entire weeks of your life here, especially in the high-rez photo galleries (much of the photography was done on 70mm medium format Hasselblad cameras, and the restored and digitized images are astonishingly beautiful and detailed).

If you prefer your space facts in printed form, I very much recommend Woods' How Apollo Flew to the Moon as an excellent one-stop-shop for understanding everything that happened in the Apollo program.

There are two must-have books that completely and totally capture the human adventure that was Apollo. The first is Chaikin's A Man on the Moon, which focuses on the crews and the landings (and was used as the primary source for the excellent HBO mini, [From the Earth to the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon_(miniseries), which everybody should watch because it's basically "Band of Brothers in space" and has awesome scenes like this). The second is Cox & Murray's Apollo: Race to the Moon, which focuses on Mission Control and the almost unbelievable amount of work that had to happen on the ground to make Apollo happen.

There are lots of other excellent Apollo books, but those two (Chaikin and Cox & Murray) are the two to buy if you want some absolutely mind-blowing reading.

Sorry to saturate you with links, but Apollo is kind of my thing :D

> Beautiful paintings are compelling shared visions.

In reality though if we ever manage to build rotating space habitats I guess that they will start way more modest, and stay that way across Musk's and Bezos' lifetimes. (By the way, it's interesting that Musk seems to be more interested in planetary colonization, while Bezos is leaning towards orbitals.)

There's another book from another O'Neil follower - The High Frontier: An Easier Way . After 40 years of more studies, they advocate building the first habitats in low equatorial earth orbit (O'Neil suggested the Lagrangean points), thus avoiding the need of massive radiation shielding, and small habitats - they suggest circumventing the problem of high rotation rates simply first selecting people that are resistant to disorientation (yes that varies a lot).

Even though, I will believe it when I see it. ;) So far we don't even have a "cheap" and reliable method to access space.

Sure!
This first one is the one I like the best:
Fundamentals of Astrodynamics
Spaceflight Dynamics: Third Edition
Introduction to Space Dynamics
They're all heavy on equations and there's a lot of overlap among them. I found the first one, Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, to be the most approachable.

From Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach (chapter 11)


> The zero-gravity fart has been a popular orbital pursuit, particularly on all-male flights. One hears tell of astronauts using intestinal gas like rocket propellant to "launch themselves across the middeck," as astronaut Roger Crouch put it. He had heard the claims and was dubious. "The mass and velocity of the expelled gas," he told me in an email that has forevermore endeared him to me, "is very small compared to the mass of the human body." Thus it was unlikely that it could accelerate a 180-pound astronaut. Crouch pointed out that an exhaled breath doesn’t propel an astronaut in any direction, and the lungs hold about six liters of air—versus the fart, which, as we learned from Dr. Murphy, holds at most three soda cans’ worth.

> Or the average person’s, anyway. "My genes have blessed me with an extraordinary ability to expel some of the byproducts of digestion," wrote Crouch. "So given that, I thought that it should be tested. In what I thought was a real voluminous and rapidly expelled purge, I failed to move noticeably." Crouch surmised that his experiment may have been compromised by the "action/reaction of the gas passing through "through the pants." Disappointingly, both his flights were mixed-gender, so Crouch was disinclined to "strip down naked" and try it again. He was heading to Cape Canaveral and promised to ask around for some other astronauts’ input, but so far no one is, as they say, spilling the beans.

Great book. If you get a chance to read it, it's chocked full of hilarious/disgusting/interesting stuff like this.

If you're designing missions (I'm assuming for academic purposes), the Payload Planners Guide will be the source of authority. This has loads expectations, payload adapter requirements, sizing, environmental controls, etc. ULA also publishes a User's Guide that you may find useful; this will contain quite a bit of other material on the vehicle as a whole that should certainly help nail down specifics.

As a starting reference for launch vehicle selection, I'd recommend the International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems, if it hasn't already been consulted. The latest edition I'm aware of is slightly out of date, but there's probably no better compendium for easy reference between different vehicles. Makes putting together a thorough and convincing trade study very simple.

As one final point, it's quite common for payoads to not make up the full fairing volume. It is not advantageous to switch to a smaller fairing in most cases, usually because aerodynamic loads, vibrational and acoustic environments will all change, putting a large risk on the launch. Not to mention the added uncertainties in deployment and the costs of uniquely manufactured equipment.

If there's extra mass in the manifests, EELV standard payload adapters (which is what you'll be using on ULA launchers) can be fitted to launch secondary payloads, usually cubesats or smaller independent vehicles. Regardless, if there isn't, there's no reason to spend millions on new fairing design. And launcher efficiency is not really your concern as a primary payload anyway; so long as the vehicle meets your needs and you can pay for it.

There are several courses that ARO (usually) has, but ME exclusive program doesn't, such as Gas Dynamics, Low/High Speed Aerodynamics, Orbital Mechanics, Aircraft Stability, and Jet Propulsion. I based this statement from the school (CalPoly Pomona) that I went to. YMMV.

Book recommendations:

• Orbital Mechanics
  
• Gas Dynamics & High Speed Aerodynamics
  
• Flight Mechanics
  
• Jet Propulsion
  
• Spacecraft Design
  
• Rocket Propulsion
  
  Aerospace is broad subject, you haven't specified whether you're interested in structures, aerodynamics, flight mechanics, or propulsion. I gave you a broad list of selection to reflect that, although I assume you are more inclined toward Astronautics (Space) part of Aerospace instead of Aeronautics (Air); hence you posted your question in /r/space.

Since no one posted yet, as an offshoot I'd recommend Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. It's actually a historical glimpse at space travel. It's not the story you might be looking for, but certainly a hilarious and interesting read. It's one of my favourites.

The Case for God and The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong are both good. The God Delusion is a simple breakdown and explanation of most major religious claims. Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World by the Dalai Llama is an interesting book on ethics. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Cook is 150 funny and insightful pages on Islam. Under the Banner of Heaven is a shocking and fascinating account of fundamentalist Mormonism. The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan discusses religion, and Cosmos and Pale Blue Dot are my secular versions of holy books. And of course given the occasion, I can't leave out God is Not Great.

I recommend avoiding authors like Lee Strobel and Deepak Chopra. Both are essentially liars for their causes, either inventing evidence, or deliberately being incredibly misleading in how they use terms. Popularity in those cases definitely doesn't indicate quality.

1. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void- Mary Roach
   
2. 9
   
3. Humor, Science, Non-Fiction
   
4. This book is hilarious and explains space travel to the layman really well. It's a humor book that happens to teach you more than you wanted to know about space.
   5.Amazon

I recently read Packing for Mars which is a great read for anyone interested in the nitty gritty parts of human space travel you normally don't hear about.

In the end she states that with ~$500B NASA could take a manned mission to Mars. I'm all for it. I feel like there's a major brain drain in this country with the sciences taking a back seat to defense.

I really liked The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking. It gives you a perspective of string theory, multiverse, tons of stuff about the universe, origins of the universe, and the philosophy of science that is ment for more entertainment and informing than dense physics literature.

If your looking more for space stuff there is Space Chronicles by Neal deGrasse Tyson

Dr. Tyson - Are you doing a book tour to promote Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier?

If so, will the schedule be posted on the Hayden website?

If not, and at the risk of bombarding the Hayden Planetarium with mail, is there a proper channel in order to get your autograph on said book?

Like most Redditors, I'd love to get it in person, but NYC is a bit far from San Antonio.

My copy is being shipped to me as we speak and I hope to start reading it as soon as tomorrow!

> about the acceleration you will get from big bombs out of the atmosphere.

Is not correct. They intended to use relatively small yield "pulse units" (they preferred to not use the word bomb). These were to be about 1-2 kilotons. Not even up the Fat Man or Little Boy yields. And even smaller, like 200 tons in initial take off from earth's surface.

A good read is the book "Project Orion" by George Dyson.

>Nuclear explosions have somewhat different effects out of an atmosphere

The propulsion was going to be from the plasma of the bomb casing hitting the pusher plate and the ablation of the oil layer pumped onto it. They were even planning on nuclear shaped charges to focus as much of this plasma toward the pusher plate as possible.

I haven't read too many that would fit the bill, but the first ones that come to mind are:

• Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
  
• The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality (I haven't managed to read through the entire thing, but so far it is pretty good)
  
• Dragonfly: NASA And The Crisis Aboard Mir
  
• Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond
  
  If anything else comes to mind, I'll make sure to post it.

Excellent choice. Might I also recommend Pale Blue Dot, also by Sagan. It's my personal favorite of his.

excerpt

Amazon link

If you'd like to learn more, I highly recommend Carl Sagan's second book Pale Blue Dot. He goes over this topic in some detail. Its a fascinating read.

EDIT: Added link.

Okay, for sci-fi, you have to get The Culture series in. Put Player of Games face out.

I don't read a lot of space books, but Asteroid Hunter by Carrie Nugent is awesome. I mostly have recommendations for spaceflight and spaceflight history, and a lot of these come from listeners to my podcast, so all credit to them.

• Corona, America's first Satellite Program Amazon
  
• Digital Apollo MIT Books
  
• An Astronaut's Guide to Earth by Chris Hadfield (Amazon)
  
• Capture Dynamics and Chaotic Motions in Celestial Mechanics: With Applications to the Construction of Low Energy Transfers by Edward Belbruno (Amazon)
  
• Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration by Buzz Aldrin (Amazon)
  
• Red Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Part 1 on Amazon)
  
• Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War by Michael Neufeld (Amazon)
  
• Space Shuttle by Dennis R Jenkins (Amazon)
  
• The History Of Manned Space Flight by David Baker (Amazon)
  
• Saturn by Lawrie and Godwin (Amazon)
  
• Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell (Amazon)
  
• Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz (Amazon)
  
• Space by James A Michener (Amazon)
  
• Encounter With Tiber by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes (Amazon)
  
• Ascent to Orbit: A Scientific Autobiography by Arthur C Clark (Amazon)
  
• Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Bate and White (Amazon)
  
• Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein (Amazon)

This was one of my favorite classes and I thought it was a rather good book to learn from. That being said you can probably find it cheaper than this.

http://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Mechanics-Engineering-Students-Aerospace/dp/0123747783/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1395292188&sr=8-2&keywords=orbital+mechanics+for+engineering+students

You will NEED to have a good grasp on the laws of motion and math/calculus. Otherwise you will just not be able to do this stuff.

These type of craft have been around for decades in the black world. It’s called electromagnetic-gravitics, or EMGs. Reducing the mass of a craft increases both its fuel efficiency and its speed, as force = mass x acceleration. Think of it as creating a bubble of your own local space-time. You create the bubble around your craft and then control the direction of that bubble and fly around like Glenda the good witch of the north in the wizard of oz. Or more accurately, as it was done in the ‘80’s movie, “Explorers”, staring Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, and Jason Presson.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorers_(film)

For more on this subject I suggest reading, “The Hunt for Zero Point”, by Nick Cook.
https://www.amazon.com/Hunt-Zero-Point-Classified-Antigravity/dp/0767906284


There have been other types of craft similar to this postulated.
Dr. Paul LaViolette has claimed for years that a different type of mass reduction technology was/is employed on the B2 bomber. One that uses plasma induction around the crafts body to reduce its air resistance.

Few will read this but I highly recommend reading 8 steps to colonize the Galaxy.

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316771635/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_ZWAPBbT92H2SG

What you're suggesting is more advanced engineering than a lunar lander.

-Aerospace Engineer

EDIT: This book is really good at explaining the development of the lunar lander and it's really not that complex. (The book is slightly technical so a background will help you understand better). http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Lander-Developed-Smithsonian-Spaceflight/dp/1588342735

To add, to this, one of the ways for humanity to harness Sun's energy is a Dyson sphere. However, there are A LOT of technical challenges to overcome. A good book I read about some of the challenges and possible solutions to harvesting energy from the Sun is The Millenial Project.

You will have to take my word for it. My library is a mess and I can't find my copy of "Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship"

Freeman Dyson explained how this result was exciting and started the line of research that started the design of this system. He indicated it created a stagnation layer that prevented the plasma from directly touching the metal. The only issue was radiative heat transfer and that was solved by making the plate a large heatsink and lowering the duty cycle of the impinging plasma.

How Spacecraft Fly by Graham Swinerd is a really excellent introduction to how the whole thing works- orbital mechanics, escape velocities, etc.

A good history of spaceflight is harder. Maybe a book about the National Air and Space Museum? There are quite a few big books that take you on a virtual tour, and you'll get snippets of most everything from that.

In addition to Guns, Germs, and Steel:

• How Round is Your Circle - The middleground between Math and Engineering. Fascinating.
  
  
• Deliver Us From Evil - Chronicles the efforts of the UN
  
  
• Skunkworks - Lockheed Martin's top programs (U-2, SR-71, etc...)
  
  
• Pale Blue Dot - Humankind's Future in Space
  
  
• The Demon-Haunted World - Modern Skepticism and Reason via Science
  
  
• Death By Black Hole - How we Know Astronomical Knowledge (Very Easy to Read and Funny)
  
  

Well lets see. This year:

• he published a book
  
• had an article published in a journal on foreign affairs
  
• is getting ready to host a reboot of Cosmos
  
• Continued to be the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
  
  When did you last contribute anything sensible to anything?

The first Muslim astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, from Malaysia had the problem of not knowing what direction to face when praying in orbit. A conference of scientists and scholars determined that facing the earth's surface would suffice.

I learned about this while reading Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. A rather interesting book about the difficulties and funny peculiarities of manned space exploration.

He's a neat guy. I really enjoyed Project Orion.

I was raised Christian and went to a fundamentalist highschool. I started questioning things when I realized my faith required me to suspend my rationality. Read some books on the historical accuracy of religious claims. My thought was always, "Well if what all these people say is true, it should hold up to rational scientific inquiry." The more I dug, the more I realized that it never could. I fought and fought with myself. Christianity (especially of the fundamentalist flavor) has this built in mechanism to dissuade disbelief. You are constantly indoctrinated to see any doubt that enters your mind as evil, sinful and to simply "pray the doubt away". I'm sure you know of this. Keep fighting, let reason and logic be your guide.

Some books that helped me on my way to breaking free:

A History of God by Karen Armstrong

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

I also recommend this youtube series by user Evid3nc3.

Those should give you alot to think about.

Remember the most important thing is to decide for yourself. Question everything and never take something as truth from authority simply because they are an authority. See if it makes sense, find the documented evidence that backs up the claims. The light may hurt at first.

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." -Carl Sagan

Have you read Asteroid Mining 101? It's by the Chief Scientist at Deep Space Industries and is a fantastic breakdown of the industry from a very technical and practical perspective. Closely related to that proposal and maybe helpful too.

The command module computer was much less powerful than a Game Boy, but then again it was physically integrated into every system on the ship and had the backing of serious computational stuff on the ground. The fascinating How Apollo Flew to the Moon mentions that at its peak the Apollo program was consuming half of the world's integrated circuit output.

Edit: fixed wording.

If you are okay with Calculus, I really liked Curtis' Orbital mechanics book. Real eye opener. The satellite paradox is especially cool.

Orbital Mechanics for Engineering Students (Aerospace Engineering) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0123747783/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_VEqXCbFAMVQ27

Neil Degrasse Tyson addresses #8 (#10?) in his book Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier. He makes the point that truly cutting-edge exploration and the necessary technological advances it requires is far too risky of an enterprise to make it a sound business investment. However, those same advances go on to benefit private industry and society as a whole.

Edit: The second #8... Probably should be #10.

BBC made an hour long documentary about this project and it's well worth the watch. It's available on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoLcJuBtOw

There's also a book written by Dyson's son, although I have not yet read it so I can't attest to how good it is. This is it here: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Orion-Story-Atomic-Spaceship/dp/0805059857

There is also a very good book about it by George Dyson who is Freeman Dyson's son.

https://www.amazon.com/Project-Orion-Story-Atomic-Spaceship/dp/0805059857

It is actually a plausible way to travel to another Star quickly.

Mary Roach touched on it in her book packing for mars. If you haven't read it I'd recommend it. Very entertaining and well researched.

In short, the answer is no. It came close to happening though.

http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/1469235919

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by
Mary Roach is quite good. It follows the history of the manned space program, and the challenges to overcome before we send a mission to Mars.

I thought it was around 20% c from the book for the Orion Project max speed. Did you read the book?

http://www.amazon.com/Project-Orion-Story-Atomic-Spaceship/dp/0805059857/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449250466&sr=1-1&keywords=orion+project

Looks like most websites reference 10% of c as the max speed. Wish I still had the book to look up what the scientists calculations were.

I read about it in Packing for mars - very interesting book, and full of information about space travel/exploration just like this.

Read Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. She does a great job explaining the difficulty of surviving space flight, including the lessons learned from the Challenger explosion.

There is a whole chapter in here about pooping in space. It is interesting and hilarious. There is also a whole chapter about sexing in space too.

Mars One is a company that is dedicated to doing just that. Also be sure to check out The Case For Mars.

Indeed, but it's actually from Neil deGrasse Tyson's new book: Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier. It's really good, but I'm only a quarter of the way through.

Yes, Mary Roach actually wrote a book called [Packing For Mars] (http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/0393068471) where she interviewed a few astronauts and it turns out it's actually very possible. Let's say you are working on something and not really paying attention and your body will kind of reassess where "down" is. So when you turn around and don't see yourself oriented the way you thought you were it makes you feel like you are up-sidedown.

This is the best book i ever read:

How apollo flew to the moon

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1441971785/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

> Meanwhile, we could be researching a technology right in front of us quickly that can benefit us now, help us better exploit resources we do have, help us get to that distant technology faster, and utilize that distant technology once it's time.

Arghh, this is indicitive of such a broken ideology. We can do both. America, alone, could do ALL OF IT if we cut the DoD budget by as little as 20%. And I'm not even suggesting that America does this alone.

I want those other things too, I want research on solutions to global warming and cancer and AIDS and dead puppies, but there's no reason we can't also colonize space.

Please, I'm begging you in solidarity as a fellow human being, do some reading.

Start here but keep following the references and allusions to other sources and, if you've got the fortitude for it, to hard research studies. I can point you in other directions if you like, but that's my personal favorite starting point when suggesting education.

And if you're too lazy to do that, at least look at the goddamn numbers.

> we're so far from an awesome Mars colony....
> I won't see it in my lifetime

You should read The Case For Mars next.

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/0684835509/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266988147&sr=8-1

A great relevant book from the guy narrating this:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hunt-Zero-Point-Antigravity/dp/0767906284

'Distances' in space are odd, even though the distance between two points may be further than another trip, it may not take that much more effort to get there. The Moon is far closer than Mars, and takes a few days rather than a few months to arrive, but I hear you need about the same size of rocket. Distances can be measured in required Delta-V, or change in velocity. Heinlein, a mid 20th century science fiction author (Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land) said, “Reach low orbit and you’re halfway to anywhere in the Solar System.”

'The point of Heinlein’s maxim is that the same amount of energy it takes to go from Earth’s surface to Earth orbit is roughly equivalent to the energy required to travel from Earth orbit to the planets. The point is that if you can get to orbit, you have the capacity to also reach most of the solar system.' Source

So, the Moon isn't necessary any easier to get to than Mars is, barring problems with months of radiation exposure, low gravity exposure, and additional effort required to launch from a planet with a larger gravity well and atmosphere.

In The Case for Mars the author explains a few resources that Mars has which allow synthesis of fuel for both rockets and internal combustion engines, growth of food, and with a not-insignificant amount of planning/science/care, become self sustaining far easier than a moon colony could.

I've been reading Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module. Incredibly fascinating book. Covers everything about the Lunar Module from design to manufacturing to the actual flights. What I enjoy most about it is how personal the book feels. Since the author is narrating the book through his own experiences, you not only get a sense of the type of thinking that led to the creation of the numerous systems, but also the kind of people these engineers, technicians, designers, etc. were.

Here is the book if you’re interested:
https://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/1469235919

It’s surprisingly funny. Also I stretched the point a bit by making the post about air force vs. civilians. It’s more about personality type and how the person responds to stress.

A bit longer, but all are solid suggestions, and although I could add two dozen more, I'm sure others will take up the cause.

• What the dog saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
  
  
• Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre
  
  
• 
  God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
  
  
• The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris
  
  
• The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein
  
  
• Super Freakonomics, by Levitt & Dubner
  
  
• The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
  
  
• The Case for Mars, by Robert Zubrin
  
  
• The Value of Nothing, by Raj Patel
  
  
  

> one thing I always found amusing was that "rocket science" was orders of magnitude simpler to calculate than a simple two link piston turning a flywheel.

Are you certain you're not confusing rocket science with ballistics space dynamics?

I loved his book: The Case for Mars

You might enjoy this book - it will tell you a lot about that model!

​

https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Lander-Developed-Apollo-Module/dp/156098998X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=lunar+lander+book&qid=1563609308&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Also on the technical side, if you want some of the inspiration for the mission architecture, try The Case For Mars by Robert Zubrin. For an insightful critique of TCFM from 18 years later, try The International Mars Research Station by Shaun Moss.

This is probably the 2nd time I've seen Woodward mentioned on reddit. It's about time he's got some exposure. If there's any chance of a breakthrough propulsion scheme that actually works, then my money is on Woodward.

He also wrote a book recently, if anyone is interested in the details of his propulsion scheme: Making Starships and Stargates

I recently read a book, titled, The Hunt for Zero Point that discusses Die Glocke. I wrote a review of the book, where I state that Nick Cook seemed to be a bit too ready to accept the claims of researcher Igor Witkowski. While, I think that Witkowski's research is interesting and merits study by anyone interested in this subject. I only wish that he (Witkowski) would find a way to provide the world with copies of the documents that he claims to have read that led him to the conclusions that he makes about Die Glocke.

As has been pointed out already, there really is no evidence to prove that such a device even existed. But the rumors of it are indeed intriguing. Put quite simply, we need more tangible evidence.

A book I'm reading. http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/0393068471

Full of fascinating tidbits.

• "Pale Blue Dot" by Carl Sagan
  
• "Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments"
  by Martyn J. Fogg
  
• "The ethics of Terraforming" by Robert Sparrow
  
  Google will get you the rest. Enjoy!

I can surely suggest you some books which cover a vast field of rocket science.

• Rocket Propulsion Elements by George P. Sutton, Oscar Biblarz
  
• Fundamentals of Astrodynamics by Roger R. Bate, Donald D. Mueller, Jerry E. White
  
• International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by S. Isakowitz, J. Hopkins, J. Hopkins Jr
  
• Elements of Propulsion: Gas Turbines and Rockets by J. Mattingly, H. von Ohain
  
  These are the same books which Elon musk used for self learning Rocket science.
  
  source: http://qr.ae/TUGfdA

Space Chronicles by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Looks good!

This seems like a fine time to share this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Sv5y6iHUM

It doesn't answer your question, but that was already answered.

Also there is book on the topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Project-Orion-Story-Atomic-Spaceship/dp/0805059857

I very highly recommend Failure is Not an Option by Gene Kranz for an insider's view of early spaceflight, and I'm currently reading How Apollo Flew to the Moon by W. David Woods, which is an extremely in-depth technical overview of the entire Apollo program written for laymen.

Yes you can. $11.56 and worth every penny. Check out Pale Blue Dot by Sagan as well. Here is an audiobook sample of Pale Blue Dot, read by Carl himself.

Also quite possibly flying saucers and time travel. If you like Nazi conspiracies, this book is a must-have:

http://www.amazon.com/Hunt-Zero-Point-Classified-Antigravity/dp/0767906284/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408152228&sr=1-1&keywords=hunt+for+zero+point

Written by an editor for Jane's Defense Weekly.

As others have pointed out, it won't work in space. But that doesn't mean they hadn't considered nuclear engines in space. Project Orion was a concept where atomic bomb explosions would be used to propel a spacecraft at incredible speeds. Famed physicist Freeman Dyson was a co-leader of the project. His son, George Dyson (a friend of mine) wrote a fascinating book about it called Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship.

Some crazy shit, man.

The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps proposed that inverted buildings were the way to go so that we wouldn't be taking away from our parks and making our view claustrophobic.

The twist is that it proposed building the cities on the ocean, so the inverted buildings would be underwater where you could see something. The cities would be power generating plants, shipping power back to the mainland in the form of hydrogen. The cities would also be training grounds for future spacefarers.

The Millennial Project: Eight Easy Steps to Colonizing the Galaxy

The Case for Mars is a good plan for how to settle Mars.

Project Orion by George Dyson is about the nuclear rocket program.

A good book on the subject

https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Lander-Developed-Smithsonian-Spaceflight/dp/1588342735/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1535831761&sr=1-1&keywords=moon+lander

reading Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship by George Dyson this week.

>The improbable story of the wildest idea-a space craft powered by hydrogen bombs-to come out of the space race.

If this it the type of question you have, then I highly recommend Packing For Mars which answers a lot of the simple human question of going to space.

Read "The Case For Mars." We totally have the tech, just politically can't get the budget. And the most expensive part of the budget is bringing someone back, nearly as healthy as they left. If you don't need to bring someone back, or even live very long once they're there, it's a lot cheaper.

You might be interested in Project Orion and this book about it.

Moon Lander - Thomas J Kelly

Is very similarly-styled book, where the author goes into great detail about the engineering challenges facing the construction of the Apollo lunar module. Not only the technical problems but also the problems with management and bureaucracy. Any type of engineer should enjoy reading this book.

How Apollo Flew to the Moon by David Woods is a great look into the moon landings. The title makes it sound kind of like a kids book, but it's actually a really in-depth look into the technology and engineering behind the Apollo missions.

If I recall correctly, in Pale Blue Dot, this question is answered in this way: It is very expensive and somewhat dangerous to send a person to the moon/space. You have to have a ton of life supporting equipment, and also have to have the equipment to return the person home. It is much safer and less costly to send robots out into space for scientific research, and leave them there - they can stay out there for years.

After reading the sample and some of the reviews, I went ahead and made a purchase. I also bought 'Pale Blue Dot' from the same author.

Would you recommend Space Chronicles: Facing the Final Frontier by Neil deGrasse Tyson?

I recommend you read this:

A case for mars

Basically, it will become feasible once the classic excuses are out of the way or overcome (money, risk/protection from radiation exposure, bone/muscle deterioration during the trip). Zubrin (the author) is THE dude.

You're looking for Orbital Mechanics/Astrodynamics. MIT has an Open Courseware class on it. Looks like they use
this book

This picture is from the book The Millenial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage. Some of the calculations are wrong, but it is an interesting read. But you don't have to take my word for it.

>I never knew realized how intertwined UFO conspiracies are with ideas of
>white supremacy.

What, you don't know the theory that UFOs are Nazi man-made in origin?!?

Wake up, sheeple!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery

Are you sure about that?


Also have a read of this:

https://www.amazon.com/Pale-Blue-Dot-Vision-Future/dp/0345376595

George Dyson talks about his Dad, Freeman's work on the Orion also His book on project Orion



Freeman Dyson's 1968 paper detailing the Orion Nuclear Ramjet

"Our plan was to send [manned] ships to Mars and Venus at a fraction of the cost of the Apollo program".

There would have been 150 people in a project Orion ship.

If we had utilised this technology we would have colonised Mars and the Moon by 1980.

Interview with Freeman Dyson about the Orion

Humanity will not become a space-faring species with chemical rockets alone.

This could have been the gateway to a real extra-terrestrial future for humanity

Radiation is the largest concern. The Earth's magnetic field shielded the Apollo astronauts from the worst of the solar radiation, but in between the Earth and Mars no such protection exists. And interesting book on the theory behind space travel and how hard it can be to put it into practice is Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. You should check it out.
http://www.amazon.com/Packing-Mars-Curious-Science-Life/dp/0393068471

Mandatory plug for the definitive book about the Apollo program:
W. David Woods’ “How Apollo Flew to the Moon”.

I'm almost done with this book: https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Lander-Developed-Smithsonian-Spaceflight/dp/1588342735

It's really interesting. Very detailed descriptions of the history, technical and managerial problems of building a human-rated spacecraft to land on the moon. Written by Thomas Kelly, Chief Engineer on the LEM project at Grumman

Pale Blue Dot

And Pale Blue Dot.

Try Pale Blue Dot. It's where that quote I posted up above came from. For a non-science person, the writing can be a bit dense at times, but it's workable for the most part. Even if it's still too dense, the book is filled with high-resolution pictures of space, so it's still decent if read as nothing but a picture book.

If you haven't yet y'all should read this.

Read Packing For Mars

In interviews with Mary Roach they most likely did not. There isn't enough privacy (or room for privacy in the shuttle).

Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

I suggest reading this for some answers. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393082105

I've got that exact book and this sitting on my nightstand. More books are on my desk too

http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/0684835509

A little old, but this might be what you are looking for: The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must

You should read this book. It goes into every aspect of Mars settlement in detail.

you should read the book; http://www.amazon.com/Case-Mars-Plan-Settle-Planet/dp/0684835509/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421005661&sr=8-2&keywords=the+case+for+mars

or at least watch the video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm34Muv6Lsg

I did an ethics report on terraforming using this book:

The Case For Mars by Robert Zubrin

Some of the detail went a little over me, but his research makes it sound very possible.

Buzz Aldrin has a 272 page answer to that question.

Moon Lander by Tom Kelly - The development process of the Apollo lunar lander from the point of view of a high ranking engineer. Just the right balance between technical and historical content.

Moon Lander by Thomas J. Kelly is about the development of the Apollo Lunar Module.

Diverses méthodes pour calculer, une fois les conditions initiales données, où un engin spatial sera après un temps t. Ou si on sait qu'il doit aller d'un point P1 à un point P2 en un temps t, quel est son trajet. Et comment optimiser un trajet dans le système solaire. En bref, de l'astrodynamique

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage
http://www.amazon.com/Millennial-Project-Colonizing-Galaxy-Eight/dp/0316771635

2100-2150: Earth gets its first Skycycle...

(also known as 'Rotating skyhooks')

That's not a "hyperloop." It's called a Mass Driver, and it is a trope of sci-fi for decades and also is extensively discussed in the Millennial Project by Marshall Savage.

If you think you are depressed by the Trump administration now, read this book and leave yourself feeling like you want to eat a shotgun blast over the things we should be doing and aren't.

The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps

IMHO nobody should call themselves a futurist until they have read this book.

All in my next book "Space Chronicles". You just have to wait until February 27, 2012. Sorry.
http://www.amazon.com/Space-Chronicles-Facing-Ultimate-Frontier/dp/0393082105

> No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.

Source

Some of the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, after that was done, worked on some wild ideas at General Atomics in San Diego. One of those ideas was for a spacecraft propelled by a series of small nuclear explosions. Seriously. A bunch of little atomic bombs going off in sequence in the back of the craft. They had the shielding all worked out, the required thrust, etc, in some detail. Could actually work for spacecraft leaving from earth orbit and provide a way to get to, say, Mars, and back in a relatively short time. George Dyson, the son of one of the scientists, wrote an interesting book (still available) about the project if you want to follow up on the details.

• The Magicians
  
  
• A Penguin History of the Second World War
  
  
• Jane's Fighting Aircraft of WWII
  
  
• Pale Blue Dot
  
  
• Ship of Magic
  
  ...and honestly, this looks kinda idiotic when I spell it out like that... I'm not sure I want that kind of insight into my psyche.:-/