dcunning11235's review against another edition
3.0
I want to give this book 5 stars for its vision, boldness, and optimism; 2 stars for its... naivete?.. and, as I shudder at my own "wokeness," blinkered history; and 3 or maybe 4 stars for schematic programs or predictions or what-ever it is best to call them. So I have to settle for a 3-star overall rating.
Leaving aside the other stuff, I did find some of the "technical" discussion on asteroid mining, settlement, etc. annoying for one recurring reason. He likes to say things like 'having solved the problem of getting stuff into orbit on the cheap, we'll need to sort out settlement on the asteroids; and once that is done, we'll be able to mine and ship back metals in bulk by extracting them and storing them by transforming them via the reaction X + Y(CO)4 + ...' So that he's giving very specific e.g. proposed chemical transformations (nevermind how you would actually get the reactions done) AFTER completely glossing over setting up mining operations and settlements on asteroids. He might as well have included 30 significant digits in all his thrust/impulse figures. Anyway, that kept sticking out to me like a splinter in a sore thumb.
His optimism on human shittiness is well received, generally, and, damn do we need it given the atmosphere of defeatism, self-flagellation, etc. that has taken over the (in particular) left in the US... but is TOO optimistic. People are in fact shitty, and we need to think about that in planning for the future, not just write it off.
Leaving aside the other stuff, I did find some of the "technical" discussion on asteroid mining, settlement, etc. annoying for one recurring reason. He likes to say things like 'having solved the problem of getting stuff into orbit on the cheap, we'll need to sort out settlement on the asteroids; and once that is done, we'll be able to mine and ship back metals in bulk by extracting them and storing them by transforming them via the reaction X + Y(CO)4 + ...' So that he's giving very specific e.g. proposed chemical transformations (nevermind how you would actually get the reactions done) AFTER completely glossing over setting up mining operations and settlements on asteroids. He might as well have included 30 significant digits in all his thrust/impulse figures. Anyway, that kept sticking out to me like a splinter in a sore thumb.
His optimism on human shittiness is well received, generally, and, damn do we need it given the atmosphere of defeatism, self-flagellation, etc. that has taken over the (in particular) left in the US... but is TOO optimistic. People are in fact shitty, and we need to think about that in planning for the future, not just write it off.
merlin_55's review
4.0
Having read Zubrin's previous two books I was a bit tentative about buying this volume. But it has been significantly updated to reflect the private sector space initiatives of Musk and Bezos. The most compelling point is that the frontier of the New World, and specifically the American West gave birth to liberal Western democracy. Whereas, in contrast, societies with closed frontiers become stale and inward looking. He posits that without a continuously expanding frontier in space, the same fate awaits us all if we remain here on earth.
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