Interstellar Travel and Multi-Generational Space Ships (Apogee Books Space Series) [Hardcover]

As a result, this book lacks the continuity one would expect from a real book and is full of repetitions. The speeches themselves are only a few pages in length so no concept is really developed. There isn't much breadth or variety either. The speeches usually are either a "motivational" sermons or a focus on a propulsion scheme. However, there is about fifteen pages devoted to necessary genetic variation in the small population of an interstellar crew.

You will have plenty of back-of-the-envelope calculations involving some rather fanciful concepts. One had a 560 kiloton lens 1,000 km wide and a 43 quadrillion watt earthbound laser. Absent in these ideas were hindrances such as interstellar debris, radiation, navigation, etc.

I thought that serious study had gone into the idea of interstellar travel. It is apparent that the work involved is little more than intellectual doodling done during semester breaks or between class lectures.

After reading this book, I have gained little sense of the feasibility of traveling to the stars.

The quality is very uneven. The science and technology-based papers are the most useful, though many of these ideas have appeared elsewhere. The philosophical commentaries are not very original. This topic deserves a more thorough study, written as a unified whole.

THIS REPLACES A TEXT THAT CONTAINED ONE WORD ERROR

Interstellar Travel & Multi-Generational Spacecraft

by Yoji Kondo and the members of the AAS

Instead of blindly following popular preconceptions and biases about matters that we have not yet had the chance to test or verify, examined in this volume is our current state of knowledge, as well as our present state of ignorance, on subjects related to interstellar travel. The science and technology of the future that would be available for building interstellar space ships would indeed be quite different from those imagined from the perspectives of the early twenty-first century. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to start thinking what it will take to mount such an undertaking so that we can begin exploring various scientific and engineering possibilities now -- rather than wait endlessly for 'the right time' to come.

1. Contents 2. Dedication - The dedication to Sheffield and Bob Forward. 3. Preface - Preface by the Editors 4. Overview by Y. Kondo 5. "Fly Me to the Stars' by Sheffield 6. Acknowledgements 7. "the Ultimate Exploration.." by G. Landis 8. "Colonizing Other Worlds" by J. Haldeman 9. "Why we must go" by D. Beason 10. "Kin-based Crews.." by J. Moore 11. figure for article by Moore (in Powerpoint) 12. "Genetic Considerations..." by D. O'Rourke 13. Glossary for O'Rourke article. 14. "language Change..." by S. Thomason 15. "Looking for Life.." by F. Dyson 16. "Remembering Charles Sheffield " by Y. Kondo 17. "Reminiscences: Bob Forward" by Landis 18. Untitled Contribution by Bob Forward