Title:
Entering Space
Subtitle:
Creating a Spacefaring Civilization
Author:
Robert Zubrin
Publisher:
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1999
ISBN
0-87477-075-8

When I was a little lad of maybe twelve years old, I admired the visions of our future as laid out by artists and futurists in books and magazines. There were pictures of space colonies and moon colonies and sleek rocketships, as well as, of course, the inevitable bubble cities and flying cars. It was the sort of thing that a youngster could dream about, and it was all going to happen Real Soon Now.

Well, we aren't flying cars (thank heavens!), and we're doing our best to keep from having to live in bubble cities. Space turned out to be more expensive than we were willing to pay for, and I read, listened, and watched with incredulity as the USAn "Skylab" was allowed to crash and burn into our atmosphere, skidding into the Australian Outback as a few lumps of melted slag. So what is going to happen to our ambitions?

Dr. Zubrin is one engineer and scientist who points a way into space that seems workable. In Entering Space he suggests that, unless we manage to make it into space, our civilization is doomed. His argument derives from several points of view, which include not just a rather naive notion of history, but also the compelling point that it is better to be the discoverer than the discovered.

Dr. Zubrin's roadmap to the stars refers frequently to failures of the present USAn space program. He indicts the USAn government's procurement system and NASA's own bureaucracy as contributing to the soaring cost of boosting into orbit. As a result one might be lead to believe that Dr. Zubrin is looking for a space program financed wholly by private enterprise. But Dr. Zubrin shows that the economics of life in space are unlikely to lend themselves to the kind of pay-back calculations used in business plans. Humanity's entry into space, says Dr. Zubrin, must be as a community looking to colonize a new frontier, not as capitalists looking to make a lot of money.

Entering Space includes everything a 21st century space program might need to start towards the stars. Dr. Zubrin has plans for colonizing Mars (see also The Case for Mars), for mining the solar system, for building fusion powered star ships, and for searching for our nearest neighbors among the stars. It is a truly energizing mental exercise, luring the reader to look into a future that may just bring about some of the marvels that a few decades ago graced the pages of books meant for small boys.