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A Traveler's Guide to the Stars
With known exoplanets now numbering in the thousands and initiatives like 100 Year Starship and Breakthrough Starshot advancing the idea of interstellar travel, the age-old dream of venturing forth into the cosmos and perhaps even colonizing distant worlds may one day become a reality. A Traveler's Guide to the Stars reveals how.
Les Johnson takes you on a thrilling tour of the physics and technologies that may enable us to reach the stars. He discusses the latest exoplanet discoveries, promising interstellar missions on the not-so-distant horizon, and exciting new developments in space propulsion, power, robotics, communications, and more. But interstellar travel will not be easy, and it is not for the faint of heart. Johnson describes the harsh and forbidding expanse of space that awaits us, and he addresses the daunting challenges—both human and technological—that we will need to overcome in order to realize tomorrow's possibilities.
A Traveler's Guide to the Stars is your passport to the next great frontier of human discovery, providing a rare inside look at the remarkable breakthroughs in science and technology that will help tomorrow's space travelers chart a course for the stars.
Les Johnson takes you on a thrilling tour of the physics and technologies that may enable us to reach the stars. He discusses the latest exoplanet discoveries, promising interstellar missions on the not-so-distant horizon, and exciting new developments in space propulsion, power, robotics, communications, and more. But interstellar travel will not be easy, and it is not for the faint of heart. Johnson describes the harsh and forbidding expanse of space that awaits us, and he addresses the daunting challenges—both human and technological—that we will need to overcome in order to realize tomorrow's possibilities.
A Traveler's Guide to the Stars is your passport to the next great frontier of human discovery, providing a rare inside look at the remarkable breakthroughs in science and technology that will help tomorrow's space travelers chart a course for the stars.
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First published October 11, 2022
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About the author
Les Johnson
16 books70 followersLes is the author or co-author of both popular science and science fiction. His latest science fiction novel, "Mission to Methone," was released by Baen Books on February 6, 2018. Coincidentally, his latest non-fiction book, "Graphene: The Superstrong, Superthin, and Superversatile Material That Will Revolutionize the World," with co-author Joe Meany, was published the same day (from a different publisher - Prometheus Books)!
By day, Les is Principal Investigator (lead scientist) for NASA's first interplanetary solar sail mission, The Near Earth Asteroid Scout, at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In the early 2000's, Les was NASA's Manager for Interstellar Propulsion Research and later managed the In-Space Propulsion Technology Project. He has worked for NASA since 1990 and has served in various technical and management roles.
Les was the featured "Interstellar Explorer" in the January 2013 issue of National Geographic Magazine. He was technical consultant for the movie, Lost in Space. NPR, CNN, Fox News, The Science Channel and The Discovery Channel have all interviewed him. He appeared on the Discovery Science Channel in their Exodus Earth series and the "How to Build A Starship" episode of Michio Kaku's 2010 Discovery Science Channel Series "Physics of the Impossible.
He was the Chief Scientist for the ProSEDS space experiment, twice received NASAs Exceptional Achievement Medal, and holds 3 space technology patents. He has numerous peer-reviewed publications and was published in Analog."
By day, Les is Principal Investigator (lead scientist) for NASA's first interplanetary solar sail mission, The Near Earth Asteroid Scout, at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. In the early 2000's, Les was NASA's Manager for Interstellar Propulsion Research and later managed the In-Space Propulsion Technology Project. He has worked for NASA since 1990 and has served in various technical and management roles.
Les was the featured "Interstellar Explorer" in the January 2013 issue of National Geographic Magazine. He was technical consultant for the movie, Lost in Space. NPR, CNN, Fox News, The Science Channel and The Discovery Channel have all interviewed him. He appeared on the Discovery Science Channel in their Exodus Earth series and the "How to Build A Starship" episode of Michio Kaku's 2010 Discovery Science Channel Series "Physics of the Impossible.
He was the Chief Scientist for the ProSEDS space experiment, twice received NASAs Exceptional Achievement Medal, and holds 3 space technology patents. He has numerous peer-reviewed publications and was published in Analog."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
February 26, 2023
Wonderful summary of the status of interstellar travel today and what is realistic/not realistic. It was easy to understand as someone who is not a physicist and had some good footnotes that made me laugh. I enjoyed the chapter explaining the probability/possibility of alien life and the section explaining the importance of science fiction as a genre that can inspire real life development. I won’t lie I still don’t understand black holes/wormholes even after reading the explanation in this book but I don’t think I ever will 😂
October 25, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. It is quite short. And if goes into lots of weird and wonderful ideas for building ships that leave the solar system.
Graphene comes up regularly. The author is describing all sorts of weird theoretical material properties that would be needed. And then will say something like 'and graphene can do this if we ever get that made in quantities'
Graphene comes up regularly. The author is describing all sorts of weird theoretical material properties that would be needed. And then will say something like 'and graphene can do this if we ever get that made in quantities'
September 8, 2025
4.5. What an excellent read. Factual but fun. Honestly a concise and clear summary of all things interstellar travel. The author was good at providing context, casual discussions on various technologies and, the good stuff, comparing popular science fiction to technological realities. If you’re into space travel and want baseline knowledge of the options and history, 100% give this a go.
July 30, 2024
Such an interesting read about the difficulties on space travel, it definitely opened my eyes and I learned lots. I enjoyed the footnotes and he explains it in a way that I could try to visualize as I went through his thought journeys. I totally recommend this book if you’re interested on future deep space travel or just space travel itself!
November 24, 2024
Loooooved. It's pretty clear after reading this that not even my great-great-great-grandchildren (were I to have any) will be alive to witness interstellar travel, but god, thinking about it happening at all does make me go starry-eyed. Especially the idea of worldships.
This is probably now my favorite nonfiction book about space, and that is all due to the author's very passionate and dorky personality shining through. Would love to be Les Johnson's friend (and I have noted down the many sci-fi recs he made throughout this). He really addressed pretty much every little thing I'd hoped to read about, including: why we should pursue interstellar travel in the first place, the ethics of sending people on journeys that they won't live to see the end of, what our options are once we do land on another planet, and wormholes as concept in general. It was awesome and I learned a lot!
This is probably now my favorite nonfiction book about space, and that is all due to the author's very passionate and dorky personality shining through. Would love to be Les Johnson's friend (and I have noted down the many sci-fi recs he made throughout this). He really addressed pretty much every little thing I'd hoped to read about, including: why we should pursue interstellar travel in the first place, the ethics of sending people on journeys that they won't live to see the end of, what our options are once we do land on another planet, and wormholes as concept in general. It was awesome and I learned a lot!
February 21, 2025
3.5 ⭐️
An sich sehr, sehr cool (wunderbar nischig), aber es wird Einiges an Wissen vorausgesetzt. Mir war es in Strecken zu technisch, trotzdem wirklich interessant 🤓
An sich sehr, sehr cool (wunderbar nischig), aber es wird Einiges an Wissen vorausgesetzt. Mir war es in Strecken zu technisch, trotzdem wirklich interessant 🤓
February 23, 2023
I enjoy learning about the theories and science that one day help us travel through space. The author gives a lot of information about what could work and dispels a few ideas that probably won’t ever work. Thankfully, it isn’t written in a text book style and he doesn’t throw in a bunch of math equations to befuddle the reader.
October 16, 2025
Incredibly interesting with a rather dry sense of humour sprinkled throughout, though it did feel rather short once the introductory/explanatory chapters were behind me.
January 18, 2023
A fantastic introduction to interstellar travel - it covers a lot of ground without going too deep into the details to lose the interest of the reader. It educates and inspires and should be read by anyone with an interest in the topic who isn't sure where to start.
January 16, 2023
easy read
The author breaks down interstellar travel in digestible chunks for those of us without advance science degrees. I especially enjoyed the analysis of some popular science fiction.
The author breaks down interstellar travel in digestible chunks for those of us without advance science degrees. I especially enjoyed the analysis of some popular science fiction.
January 22, 2023
The first, I should be super clear that although I wasn't a fan of the book it is through no fault of the author. It really comes down to you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, and probably with more basic you shouldn't judge it by just its title. I've seen lots of books title like this that then focus on a solar system geology, space science, astronomy, etc. This book isn't about the stars, but a realistic look at how we might travel to them. From there my opinion comes down to how much should a popular science book focus on speculative/theoretical science in the distant future. The first half did a decent job of explaining current technologies that *might* be expanded / upgraded in the future to allow interstellar travel. However, the author openly admits that so much of the suspective that it's hard to make any clear judgments. Add on to that the tug is in so many different directions, I don't have to becomes impractical to envision pursuing any one of them to completion. I'm part of this is just a flexible life, this isn't to say that none of these (and it's possible that several of these) will become viable options in the future. Beyond that, I did enjoy the vast amount of Science fiction referenced in the Final Chapter, which included recommendations for a lot of books that I have not read. Nonetheless I just didn't personally enjoy a work that was so speculative. All too often an idea was presented and then immediately caveat with the claim that it may be difficult if not impossible to bring the idea to scale. Personally I'm not convinced that humans will travel interstellarly, though I am hopeful that we might at least launch a interstellar probe in my lifetime. Opinions are just that though, and made all the less reliable when they are about the predicting the future.
January 8, 2024
As a science fiction author, I found this book tremendously useful. I particularly liked the sections on using the Solar Gravitational Lens for observation and communication purposes. Brilliant! Really all of the chapters on extant and developing technologies are great.
There were a few places where I felt the author simply did not think it through. He ascribes to the notion that it would not be ethical to colonize a planet that already hosts life. But if that's the case, why build those nifty manned interstellar vessels he discusses in subsequent chapters? There are plenty of barren planets right here in our own solar system. But this is more a political quibble than anything else. Objections to leveraging existing life are never going to carry the day IMO.
He also played both ends of the Fermi Paradox, saying on the one hand that industrial civilization is just a blip in time, and on the other, it is unreasonable that no one would have visited us if their 10000 year old industrial space faring civilization was expanding through the galaxy, which implies we're all alone. But those are almost diametrically opposed stances. The simple answer is industrial civilization is a blip, and once it runs its course and collapses, it doesn't happen again. Ever. Because it used up every available resource that a stone-age civilization would need to become an industrial civilization again. Basically, we get one shot to get off the planet.
So just because nobody is saying "Hi Earth!" over radio waves doesn't mean nobody is out there. It means they don't have radio anymore.
But these are really tiny quibbles compared to all the amount of really useful, concise explanations of space exploration technology he discusses! If anything, I loved arguing with the guy in my head over coffee. Good stuff.
There were a few places where I felt the author simply did not think it through. He ascribes to the notion that it would not be ethical to colonize a planet that already hosts life. But if that's the case, why build those nifty manned interstellar vessels he discusses in subsequent chapters? There are plenty of barren planets right here in our own solar system. But this is more a political quibble than anything else. Objections to leveraging existing life are never going to carry the day IMO.
He also played both ends of the Fermi Paradox, saying on the one hand that industrial civilization is just a blip in time, and on the other, it is unreasonable that no one would have visited us if their 10000 year old industrial space faring civilization was expanding through the galaxy, which implies we're all alone. But those are almost diametrically opposed stances. The simple answer is industrial civilization is a blip, and once it runs its course and collapses, it doesn't happen again. Ever. Because it used up every available resource that a stone-age civilization would need to become an industrial civilization again. Basically, we get one shot to get off the planet.
So just because nobody is saying "Hi Earth!" over radio waves doesn't mean nobody is out there. It means they don't have radio anymore.
But these are really tiny quibbles compared to all the amount of really useful, concise explanations of space exploration technology he discusses! If anything, I loved arguing with the guy in my head over coffee. Good stuff.
November 8, 2024
Physicist and NASA technologist Les Johnson presents us with a short book discussing the theoretical path towards interstellar travel. He begins by briefly covering the history of the human relationship with space and our early sojourns beyond Earth's atmosphere. Then we are treated to an examination of various methods of existing and proposed propulsion, their challenges and limitations, as well as a broader discussion of the incredible logistical and technological difficulties involved with sending robots and humans across unfathomably large distances to other worlds.
Johnson, like many other engineers and scientists in the field, proudly declares the incredible influence that science fiction has had on his interest in space. It is no surprise, then, to see that he dedicates the entire final chapter to various methods of propulsion and interstellar travel dreamed up in science fiction novels, movies, and television shows. It's a fun chapter, and emphasizes how important these things are for inspiring ideas and new generations of astronomers, engineers, and physicists.
Written with an eye towards a non-technical audience, I think Johnson does a good job of simplifying complex topics into something the average reader can understand. This book is very much a surface-level overview of things, but is no less interesting for it. Johnson's passion for space exploration is apparent in his writing, and it is always exciting to read works by passionate researchers and scientists. One thing I wished he addressed in his book are the additional challenges presented by time dilation caused by relative velocity as they pertain to communicating with interstellar ships and/or probes. In any case, this is a fun and educational book about space travel, and I enjoyed reading it.
Johnson, like many other engineers and scientists in the field, proudly declares the incredible influence that science fiction has had on his interest in space. It is no surprise, then, to see that he dedicates the entire final chapter to various methods of propulsion and interstellar travel dreamed up in science fiction novels, movies, and television shows. It's a fun chapter, and emphasizes how important these things are for inspiring ideas and new generations of astronomers, engineers, and physicists.
Written with an eye towards a non-technical audience, I think Johnson does a good job of simplifying complex topics into something the average reader can understand. This book is very much a surface-level overview of things, but is no less interesting for it. Johnson's passion for space exploration is apparent in his writing, and it is always exciting to read works by passionate researchers and scientists. One thing I wished he addressed in his book are the additional challenges presented by time dilation caused by relative velocity as they pertain to communicating with interstellar ships and/or probes. In any case, this is a fun and educational book about space travel, and I enjoyed reading it.
April 23, 2023
Is it possible to travel beyond the solar system? A Travlers Guide to the Stars covers many problems and possible solutions to sending robots or people to the stars. The author Les Johnson tackles the pros and cons of using different propulsion systems. He examines conventional propulsion systems, ion rocket propulsion, antimatter, solar sails, electric sails and nuclear propulsion.
One of the crazy ideas Johnson explores is Project Orion which uses nuclear bombs to propel the rocket into space. Its an idea so crazy it might work. It will never happen because nuclear bombs produce radioactive fallout which makes it too dangerous to do.
Towards to the end of the book Johnson explores exotic propulsion ideas. The first is the Alcubierre Warp Drive. The Alcubierre drive compresses space in front of it and expands space behind it. This drive might be able to achieve 0.2C of the speed of light. The most exotic form of travel is to use worm holes to jump to different parts of space or even another universe. The problem with wormholes is you need exotic matter that repels gravity to work and no such matter has been discovered yet. The other solution is to use a stargate like Stargate SG1. However it is not clear how a worm hole can be trapped and opened by a stargate. Overall, A Travlers Guide to the Stars is an excellent read and it deserves five stars.
One of the crazy ideas Johnson explores is Project Orion which uses nuclear bombs to propel the rocket into space. Its an idea so crazy it might work. It will never happen because nuclear bombs produce radioactive fallout which makes it too dangerous to do.
Towards to the end of the book Johnson explores exotic propulsion ideas. The first is the Alcubierre Warp Drive. The Alcubierre drive compresses space in front of it and expands space behind it. This drive might be able to achieve 0.2C of the speed of light. The most exotic form of travel is to use worm holes to jump to different parts of space or even another universe. The problem with wormholes is you need exotic matter that repels gravity to work and no such matter has been discovered yet. The other solution is to use a stargate like Stargate SG1. However it is not clear how a worm hole can be trapped and opened by a stargate. Overall, A Travlers Guide to the Stars is an excellent read and it deserves five stars.
February 20, 2024
The initial statement of the author that the book would not be 'technical' made me wary that the subject matter would be covered in a hand-wavy, vague manner. However, details about interstellar travel were covered in a rather specific way, with ample resources provided for further reading. There is a considerable degree of repetition of some concepts, and some components feel out of order in the chapters. But, the book does provide a good introduction to futuristic problems associated with interstellar travel and how they can be overcome. It's well-written and alright, but not spectacular, leaving one with a lukewarm feeling.
February 29, 2024
Although this book is aimed at making the scientific accessible to the masses and does a fairly good job of doing so, I will say that it is still not for everyone. That said, for those with a keen interest in space travel and have at least a basic scientific background, I believe you will find this book to be a fascinating and very informative read. As someone who has been enamored by the concept of a generational ship for quite some time, I loved the way in which Johnson helps to explain a large portion of how our ships might be powered with today’s technologies or how near future technologies might be shaped to get us there. A must read for starship building enthusiasts!
December 30, 2024
A concise and engaging book on the current state of interstellar travel. It effectively outlined the formidable challenges involved, including the technological hurdles that must be overcome. The book explored various proposed methods, their limitations, and the fundamental physical constraints that govern such journeys.
Despite its brevity, the book was remarkably informative and never felt dense. However, I must respectfully disagree with the author's opinion on the film 'Passengers,' I found it to be an unsatisfactory cinematic experience.
Despite its brevity, the book was remarkably informative and never felt dense. However, I must respectfully disagree with the author's opinion on the film 'Passengers,' I found it to be an unsatisfactory cinematic experience.
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January 17, 2023I skimmed a bit when it got too deep into physics for me, but some good info about interstellar travel here. Author lost me when he commended Passengers for its quality and science fiction value though.
February 17, 2023
An unusual and fun read – what is the science behind a genuine effort to travel to other stars and solar systems? I had some trouble with the science later in the book ... some of it was beyond me ... but generally this is well-written and clear.
April 30, 2025
As a sci-fi lover, it is fun to hear about whether or nor space travel (as seen in Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, Stargate, etc.) is possible. If so...how?
Extra points for Monty Python references.
Extra points for Monty Python references.
October 29, 2025
Covers all means of space travel and all the other topics that need to be considered. Being new to his subject I found this book to be informative, inspiring and giving a general idea of where human space travel currently is at.
December 7, 2022
easy to read, understand and enjoy! I loved the book and had a wonderful conversation with Les Johnson, Smithsonian Associate as interview guest.
Want to read
December 13, 2022As heard on Clear+Vivid with Alan Alda:
https://clear-vivid-with-alan-alda.si...
https://clear-vivid-with-alan-alda.si...
January 3, 2023
Interesting, but I think it would be better as a Kindle or physical book rather than an Audible one.
February 9, 2023
A meticulous, if discouraging, read of the nearly insurmountable challenges to true interstellar travel.
February 10, 2023
A must read for any interested in interstellar travel!
May 5, 2023
Fantastic!!!
October 4, 2023
I liked it a lot, but I also like Les and you can definitely hear his voice in this book. It is technical, but he tries to explain everything.
May 29, 2024
Very thought provoking, especially in the second half as the book actually explores possible propulsion mechanisms and their limitations.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews