Living Off the Land in Space: Green Roads to the Cosmos | 
 enlarge | Authors: Gregory L. Matloff, Les Johnson, C Bangs
Publisher: Springer
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 362937
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 250
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0387360549
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.442
EAN: 9780387360546
ASIN: 0387360549
Publication Date: June 6, 2007
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Product Description
Human civilization has evolved to the point at which we can consider tapping space resources and expanding beyond Earth?s atmosphere. The Introduction surveys possible motivations for large-scale human emigration to space. Since our early ancestors began to move out of Africa, humans have constantly expanded their range. Today, the pattern of human settlement extends from pole to pole. Humans regularly visit the upper troposphere and ocean floor and technology has enabled a few to even reside above the atmosphere in space stations. For the next few millennia at least (barring breakthroughs), the human frontier will include the solar system and the nearest stars. Will it better to settle the Moon, Mars, or a nearby asteroid and what environments can we expect to find in the vicinity of nearby stars are questions that need to be answered if mankind is to migrate into space.
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Future in Space May 20, 2008
There is a huge amount of science-fiction-like books dealing with aspects of Humankind's future. What is certainly difficult, greatly difficult in some cases, is to describe what the future may look like based on knowledge of the past and awareness of the present. The authors of "Living Off the Land in Space: Green Roads to the Cosmos" are two scientists and one artist, well recognized internationally, who committed themselves to popularizing very, very important aspects of our future: not the future many centuries ahead, which is quite unpredictable on a true scientific basis, but the future that appears reasonable, and desirable, starting from the present and imitating - very probably - what happened along the history of Humankind. Another key feature of the book is represented by the "fusion" of Science, Technology, and Art. Many authors of reliable books describing the future are used to make a considerable harvest from many different scientific areas, but neglect the artistic aspect of the human thought.
This book has a very good logical sequence of the chapters, which includes virtually the most important items at the time of the manuscript completion. Who is really interested in reading a book regarding the evergreen human desire for space exploration and space expansion - the final frontier - not based on fantasy, but on solid cultural basis, can find an excellent overview in this 250-page book.
Rome - Italy, May 20, 2008
Vulpetti Giovanni, PhD.
International Academy of Astronautics, Paris - France
Living off the land in space November 5, 2007
This is a good book for those interested in the behinds the scenes of space exploration. This book gave enough technical information for background. The authors brought in their experience and first hand knowledge of this on going effort as well as the path forward. This has some of the stuff sci-fi books are based on.
 Wade through the tech-talk to visit the garden of possibility! September 27, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Living off the Land in Space. It conjures biodomes, algae-growing, 'clean' fuels, and a 1970s Original Star Trek view of the infinately hospitable worlds out in the black yonder for us to exploit - er, I meant explore...
Really, how often did you see Kirk in an enviro-suit and oxygen mask whilst cannodling on the surface of Virgos V?
Now, back to the book -
To my slight disappointment, however, there is much more technological discussion, and much less fantastical futuristic musings. Oh well.
Strangely, despite my lack of techie impulses, once I resigned myself to a bit of a slog through the 'hard' side, I did find myself intrigued by the reasoned discussion of various propulsion systems (chem-fuel, ramjets, magnetic-electric tethers, solar sails, ion! drives and more), an explication of the really really really unimaginably vast distances of SPACE (as in roughly 7,000 years - years! worth of travel (at our best modern rates) to reach Alpha Centauri - our nearest stellar neighbor), and a strange little inserted list explaining the levels that ideas, theories, and prototypes all go through before floating off towards our planetary neighbors, handily illustrated by even more interesting types of hardware that most people don't know we're developing.
The book (freely admitted both at beginning and end) is a bit dated, which is both good and bad. Good, because that means that our current levels of space interest are high enough to make this book outdated by the time it hits the presses; bad in that even the casual reader can smile sadly when he comments on the Japanese mission probe "which will return with asteroid samples in June of 2007" ... or not.
Lastly, the neo-hippy vibe of the title does not carry through the book. The exact idea - utilizing resources from space or from our various destinations - is the focus of the book. But - the reason for that focus seems more economic than environmental. There are myriad explanations throughout on the relative efficiency of newer (or less explored) travel options, but not many comments on the lessened environmental impact. And, in a staggering sense of cross-purpose, please note the many casual suggestions about mining the moon and Mars - although not, he does allow, if there is native life.
This juxtaposition was the only real sour note in the book, which was ultimately an entertaining romp through the technologies and theories which will get us into space.
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