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Human Spaceflight: From Mars to the Stars
Mars, the red planet named for the god of war, a mysterious dust-ridden place, is most like Earth in its climate and seasons. Of all the possible destinations in space to travel, Mars is the most likely for humans to reach. According to esteemed scientist Louis Friedman, it may be the only destination outside the moon to ever see human footprints.
Far from diminishing our future in space, Human Spaceflight lays out a provocative future for human space travel. The noted aerospace engineer and scientist says that human space exploration will continue well into the future, but space travel by humans will stop at Mars. Instead, nanotechnology, space sails, robotics, biomolecular engineering, and artificial intelligence will provide the vehicles of the future for an exciting evolution not just of space travel but of humankind.
Friedman has worked with agencies around the globe on space exploration projects to extend human presence beyond Mars and beyond the solar system. He writes that once we accept Mars as the only viable destination for humans, our space program on planet Earth can become more exciting and more relevant. Mars, he writes, will take hundreds, even thousands, of years to settle. During that time, humans and all our supporting technologies will evolve, allowing our minds to be present throughout the universe while our bodies stay home on Earth and Mars.
Far from diminishing our future in space, Human Spaceflight lays out a provocative future for human space travel. The noted aerospace engineer and scientist says that human space exploration will continue well into the future, but space travel by humans will stop at Mars. Instead, nanotechnology, space sails, robotics, biomolecular engineering, and artificial intelligence will provide the vehicles of the future for an exciting evolution not just of space travel but of humankind.
Friedman has worked with agencies around the globe on space exploration projects to extend human presence beyond Mars and beyond the solar system. He writes that once we accept Mars as the only viable destination for humans, our space program on planet Earth can become more exciting and more relevant. Mars, he writes, will take hundreds, even thousands, of years to settle. During that time, humans and all our supporting technologies will evolve, allowing our minds to be present throughout the universe while our bodies stay home on Earth and Mars.
- GenresScienceNonfictionSpace
168 pages, Paperback
First published November 5, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 14, 2016
Disappointing, starting with the misleading title.
This book isn't about human spaceflight overall - it's about light-sail-powered spacecraft with passing mentions of chemical rockets and electric drives powered by heat from radioactive material (not by reactors.)
Those are interesting technologies, but he omits or dismisses some important others, e.g. space elevators, mass drivers (similar to rail guns) launching from the moon or other places in vacuum, and nuclear-reactor-driven ion drives.
Friedman simply states as a given that there is no reason for human beings to travel in person beyond Mars and that all other space exploration can and will be done by small unpiloted spacecraft, either by remote control or controlled by onboard artificial intelligence (AI.)
He announces that Mars is the only place other than Earth which could be colonized by people, because it has water (frozen underground) and an atmosphere. A simple survey of the writings of other engineers and scientists reveals a number of other places many of them consider equally practical, including the surface and the orbit of Mercury, the asteroids in the Main Belt and others, Luna, the LaGrange points in Earth orbit, and according to some fairly down-to-earth (so to speak) scientists, farther out in the Kuiper Belt or even the Oort Cloud if the problems of generating enough energy to sustain colonies in those places can be solved.
Actually, asteroids in Earth-crossing orbits and in the Main Belt might make the most sense - the surfaces of both Mars and the Moon are subject to lethal radiation, whereas a colony tunneled into the interior of a solid stony or metallic asteroid would be well shielded; digging in on Mars or the Moon seems promising, but neither body is completely seismically stable. Further, we don't have data on the long-term effects of their reduced gravity on human health - Mars is 1/3 Earth gravity, Luna 1/6. An asteroid could be spun to use centrifugal force to generate Earth-normal gravity at the outer edges of a hollow space inside, like that old state fair ride where a spinning cylinder plasters people against its inside wall. And asteroids offer the most potential for industrial use, since a lot of them are basically open-pit mines without the dirt on top, with the bonus of no biosphere to be affected. And a lot of asteroids have generous amounts of water ice.
Friedman argues that these activities can and will be carried out by the aforementioned robotic craft controlled either remotely or by AI - but in every complex activity, situations arise that require a fast human judgment call; even from Mars, most places in the Main Belt, where most of the solar system's easily accessible resources are located, are anywhere from over half an hour to several hours distance each way electronically. Way too much lag time if you're trying to keep a machine from accidentally destroying itself.
Beyond that, there are three reasons that Friedman either doesn't mention or discounts for humans to go to the outer solar system (as well as inward toward the orbit and possibly upper atmosphere of Venus and the orbit and subsurface of Mercury.)
First: Where there is legitimate economic activity, there's illicit activity, e.g. piracy, smuggling, and industrial espionage/sabotage. Those are in-person activities, at least for anyone who doesn't want to create a handy "bust me" evidence trove for investigators who find robotic craft used for those purposes.
Second: Just as there have always been groups on Earth who sought frontiers and isolation from governments and larger societies that cramped their styles - think of a lot of the Europeans who came to the New World, the American Wild West, the Mormons migrating to Utah, and on the darker side, places like Jonestown - and Earth is about out of places remote enough for such groups to go. If they can scrape together the resources to get off Earth, they'll be heading out for new places to lose themselves. And especially if one of the technologies Friedman doesn't discuss, the space elevator, comes to fruition, that trip will get a lot cheaper to make.
Third: "Because it's there." Friedman writes that he has no need or desire to physically go to Mars, and neither does anyone else, because we've seen such great pictures from the landers there. Well, that's probably true for a lot of people, but not everyone. If we all felt that way, no one would risk their lives climbing Everest and other dangerous mountains. There will always be adventurers who want the rush of doing something and going somewhere few or no other people have before them, and that will include going to the inner and outer system.
The thing I found most irritating about this book, beyond its intellectual myopia, is its hypocrisy. As far as I know, no technologies have yet been used for functional space travel, manned or unmanned, beyond the early testing stage, except chemical rockets and ion propulsion. A few tests of light sails have been carried out on Earth and in space, but the technology to build the kinds of light-sail craft Friedman talks about doesn't exist yet. He dismisses this by saying that given the pace of technological progress, people will surely come up with the needed inventions or improvements in the next few decades.
He's probably right. However, when he talks about any other new technology, he states that because it doesn't exist yet it's just science fiction and dismisses it without further consideration. So if he likes the idea, it will surely come to pass even though it hasn't yet. If it isn't his pet, it's a fantasy not worthy of serious discussion.
Finally, he says nothing about light sails that others didn't say before him.
This isn't the writing of a true scientist, who looks at all the evidence and follows it wherever it leads. It's the attitude of someone who begins with a conclusion, then cherry-picks or projects evidence to support that conclusion and discards any competing ideas. Sorry I wasted my time.
This book isn't about human spaceflight overall - it's about light-sail-powered spacecraft with passing mentions of chemical rockets and electric drives powered by heat from radioactive material (not by reactors.)
Those are interesting technologies, but he omits or dismisses some important others, e.g. space elevators, mass drivers (similar to rail guns) launching from the moon or other places in vacuum, and nuclear-reactor-driven ion drives.
Friedman simply states as a given that there is no reason for human beings to travel in person beyond Mars and that all other space exploration can and will be done by small unpiloted spacecraft, either by remote control or controlled by onboard artificial intelligence (AI.)
He announces that Mars is the only place other than Earth which could be colonized by people, because it has water (frozen underground) and an atmosphere. A simple survey of the writings of other engineers and scientists reveals a number of other places many of them consider equally practical, including the surface and the orbit of Mercury, the asteroids in the Main Belt and others, Luna, the LaGrange points in Earth orbit, and according to some fairly down-to-earth (so to speak) scientists, farther out in the Kuiper Belt or even the Oort Cloud if the problems of generating enough energy to sustain colonies in those places can be solved.
Actually, asteroids in Earth-crossing orbits and in the Main Belt might make the most sense - the surfaces of both Mars and the Moon are subject to lethal radiation, whereas a colony tunneled into the interior of a solid stony or metallic asteroid would be well shielded; digging in on Mars or the Moon seems promising, but neither body is completely seismically stable. Further, we don't have data on the long-term effects of their reduced gravity on human health - Mars is 1/3 Earth gravity, Luna 1/6. An asteroid could be spun to use centrifugal force to generate Earth-normal gravity at the outer edges of a hollow space inside, like that old state fair ride where a spinning cylinder plasters people against its inside wall. And asteroids offer the most potential for industrial use, since a lot of them are basically open-pit mines without the dirt on top, with the bonus of no biosphere to be affected. And a lot of asteroids have generous amounts of water ice.
Friedman argues that these activities can and will be carried out by the aforementioned robotic craft controlled either remotely or by AI - but in every complex activity, situations arise that require a fast human judgment call; even from Mars, most places in the Main Belt, where most of the solar system's easily accessible resources are located, are anywhere from over half an hour to several hours distance each way electronically. Way too much lag time if you're trying to keep a machine from accidentally destroying itself.
Beyond that, there are three reasons that Friedman either doesn't mention or discounts for humans to go to the outer solar system (as well as inward toward the orbit and possibly upper atmosphere of Venus and the orbit and subsurface of Mercury.)
First: Where there is legitimate economic activity, there's illicit activity, e.g. piracy, smuggling, and industrial espionage/sabotage. Those are in-person activities, at least for anyone who doesn't want to create a handy "bust me" evidence trove for investigators who find robotic craft used for those purposes.
Second: Just as there have always been groups on Earth who sought frontiers and isolation from governments and larger societies that cramped their styles - think of a lot of the Europeans who came to the New World, the American Wild West, the Mormons migrating to Utah, and on the darker side, places like Jonestown - and Earth is about out of places remote enough for such groups to go. If they can scrape together the resources to get off Earth, they'll be heading out for new places to lose themselves. And especially if one of the technologies Friedman doesn't discuss, the space elevator, comes to fruition, that trip will get a lot cheaper to make.
Third: "Because it's there." Friedman writes that he has no need or desire to physically go to Mars, and neither does anyone else, because we've seen such great pictures from the landers there. Well, that's probably true for a lot of people, but not everyone. If we all felt that way, no one would risk their lives climbing Everest and other dangerous mountains. There will always be adventurers who want the rush of doing something and going somewhere few or no other people have before them, and that will include going to the inner and outer system.
The thing I found most irritating about this book, beyond its intellectual myopia, is its hypocrisy. As far as I know, no technologies have yet been used for functional space travel, manned or unmanned, beyond the early testing stage, except chemical rockets and ion propulsion. A few tests of light sails have been carried out on Earth and in space, but the technology to build the kinds of light-sail craft Friedman talks about doesn't exist yet. He dismisses this by saying that given the pace of technological progress, people will surely come up with the needed inventions or improvements in the next few decades.
He's probably right. However, when he talks about any other new technology, he states that because it doesn't exist yet it's just science fiction and dismisses it without further consideration. So if he likes the idea, it will surely come to pass even though it hasn't yet. If it isn't his pet, it's a fantasy not worthy of serious discussion.
Finally, he says nothing about light sails that others didn't say before him.
This isn't the writing of a true scientist, who looks at all the evidence and follows it wherever it leads. It's the attitude of someone who begins with a conclusion, then cherry-picks or projects evidence to support that conclusion and discards any competing ideas. Sorry I wasted my time.
December 25, 2023
Fascinating to learn more about this though it was a bit too technical for me at times. Interesting that he thinks that humans won't reach further than Mars but that robots/AI might very well.
March 7, 2016
The book that was read was Human Spaceflight: From Mars to the Stars by Louis Friedman. First off, one would like to mention the fact that this book is very professional sounding. Louis uses complex language throughout and some parts are difficult to comprehend. In his book, Louis elaborates on why he thinks that humans will not physically travel beyond Mars. However, the majority of the book is Louis talking about a solar sailing type of spacecraft, not colonization of mars or travel beyond our solar system. The subject of why humans must colonize mars is not breached until the last three chapters. Louis says that physically, humans will not travel farther than Mars, due to the enormous distances in space. Louis believes that instead, humanity will send autonomous robots or even Artificial Intelligence robots to the planets and stars we as humans cannot reach. However, he still believes humans will colonize Mars as sort of a backup planet to Earth.
This book certainly exposes the reader to a different approach to space travel that the reader might not have thought of. One such reader had never considered a solar sail powered spaceship, nor had they considered the thought of not sending humans off to explore the galaxy. This reader was under the assumption that, in order to “explore” the universe humanity would have to go themselves. Louis completely disagrees. He says that in the future, virtual reality and artificial intelligence will be so advanced, humans won't need to design faster than light engines or a warp drive or anything else out of a science fiction movie. As long as humanity has more people interested in space, they will have people to analyze the data that the probes sent out give them. Humans will always have more people interested in space. This book could be very useful to provide a secondary opinion and maybe a contrasting idea to a certain APA persuasive paper
This book certainly exposes the reader to a different approach to space travel that the reader might not have thought of. One such reader had never considered a solar sail powered spaceship, nor had they considered the thought of not sending humans off to explore the galaxy. This reader was under the assumption that, in order to “explore” the universe humanity would have to go themselves. Louis completely disagrees. He says that in the future, virtual reality and artificial intelligence will be so advanced, humans won't need to design faster than light engines or a warp drive or anything else out of a science fiction movie. As long as humanity has more people interested in space, they will have people to analyze the data that the probes sent out give them. Humans will always have more people interested in space. This book could be very useful to provide a secondary opinion and maybe a contrasting idea to a certain APA persuasive paper
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews