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The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps
Presenting a step-by-step plan for exploring and colonizing space, a practical, coherent, yet visionary blueprint combines cutting-edge science, technological sophistication, and fact-based speculation for building self-contained environments in space, colonizing Mars, and much more. Simultaneous.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
March 12, 2009
One of my favorite books of all time. Just crazy enough to be possible, this guy seriously has a step-by-step for colonizing the galaxy.
It challenges you to think BIG and long term, and provides ways to economically solve world hunger, overpopulation, and create a superhuman race of post-earthlings. What is not to like about it?
Suspend your judgment, give it a read, and open your mind to the possibilities. I think you'll enjoy it if you read it like you were 14 years old again.
It challenges you to think BIG and long term, and provides ways to economically solve world hunger, overpopulation, and create a superhuman race of post-earthlings. What is not to like about it?
Suspend your judgment, give it a read, and open your mind to the possibilities. I think you'll enjoy it if you read it like you were 14 years old again.
April 26, 2018
Read this in my childhood, sometime around 12-15 years old. It was an awesome book at that point. It still inspires me. It has a lot of ideas which are meant as solutions to problems that humanity would bump into while colonizing the galaxy. These ideas are probably more fiction than science, but that's how you start. Anyway, I recommend this book if you are into futurism, science, and space colonization.
May 20, 2022
A somewhat ambitious book.
.....
Just my cup of tea! The right amount of science, ecological realism, ideas of engineering, and techno-optimist speculation. This is a really fun read, although it may be a little bit dated.
We need to start thinking (very) long term as a species and as caretakers of this world, which includes our Earth, our Solar System, and all the potentialities of and dangers to sentient life spreading across the Universe. What do we want? How do we go forward? Is a more balanced and ecologically sustainable existence possible (and/or necessary) on Earth and beyond? Which (sub)problems do we need to take on, and what are the most effective ways to solve those?
We also need more sociological/cultural/economical/political books to talk about these techno-utopian, visionary themes. These may be even more important to create a roadmap for the future than science and engineering concepts are.
.....
Just my cup of tea! The right amount of science, ecological realism, ideas of engineering, and techno-optimist speculation. This is a really fun read, although it may be a little bit dated.
We need to start thinking (very) long term as a species and as caretakers of this world, which includes our Earth, our Solar System, and all the potentialities of and dangers to sentient life spreading across the Universe. What do we want? How do we go forward? Is a more balanced and ecologically sustainable existence possible (and/or necessary) on Earth and beyond? Which (sub)problems do we need to take on, and what are the most effective ways to solve those?
We also need more sociological/cultural/economical/political books to talk about these techno-utopian, visionary themes. These may be even more important to create a roadmap for the future than science and engineering concepts are.
September 14, 2016
When this book was written in the early nineties, indicators of a stressed planet like climate change were still more or less on the horizon. Now that our attention has been drawn more completely to these things, this book seems even more relevant. But more than that, it is a refreshing and optimistic take on how to ensure our civilization doesn't snuff itself out. Rather than limit population growth or play an international zero-sum game, let's colonize space. We can do it, he exhorts us:
"Let us form of ourselves an army of starship troopers, gird on our tungsten armor, and go forth to do battle with Chaos and the minions of darkness. Let us unfurl the green and golden banners of our cosmic crusade, storm the bastions of vacuum, sow our sacred seeds among the stars, and take this galaxy in the name of Life!"
The basic plan consists of eight "easy" steps, all logically flowing from one to the next: 1) foster a culture shift that allows for these big projects to happen; 2) colonize the oceans, tapping their resources while learning how to be self-sufficient; 3) engineer an efficient means for launching lots of stuff into space, using energy produced by the ocean; 4) colonize geosynchronous orbit, learning how to construct biodomes in space; 5) populate the moon, mining its resources; 6) terraform Mars; 7) colonize and exploit the asteroid belt; and 8) take to the stars once we have fully utilized the Sun's energy.
Marshall Savage supplements his plan with loads of tabulated data, on everything from the nutritional content of spirulina to the physical characteristics of the largest asteroids. But even more to my enjoyment, he makes liberal use of allusions to Norse, Greek, English, and Jewish mythologies. Indeed, many of the names he chooses for the steps are drawn from mythology. At times I think he gets a bit carried away, such as naming his proposed launch system Bifrost, after the Norse rainbow bridge to Asgard. Capsules driven halfway out of the atmosphere by a railgun are further blasted to orbit by a rainbow-hued array of lasers turning a block of ice lodged in their sterns into propellant. He tries to rationalize this scheme by asserting ice is more penetrable by white light and that different wavelengths work better for different altitudes. But I think he fell for the poetic symbolism. After all, he names the next step Asgard.
Adding to the charm are the author's numerous references to pop culture, music of the sixties and seventies, and new age spirituality. Indeed, at times the book reads like a hippy manifesto, a feeling enhanced by the book obviously having been composed on a home computer, and the author's eccentric abuse of commas and other minor grammatical infractions, and some low-budget illustrations. All the while the book strides the line between science and science fiction, true as an arrow. The book is great fodder for a budding sci-fi writer. Looking at the portrait of the author in the back, with his swarthy complexion, full head of hair, and impressive black beard, one can easily imagine Marshall Savage as some interplanetary Captain Nemo, giving a tour of one of his bubble colonies on its way to Mars. Are things as blissful as they seem? Care for some spirulina?
Later on, I was most intrigued by his idea of encapsulating and hollowing out asteroids, and building cities inside them. Trees in such low gravity would grow to titanic proportions, he tells us. I suppose when you're thinking this far out of the box, you can afford not to worry about baobabs shattering little worlds.
In the end Savage tries to convince us that we very well may be the only living things in the Universe, and as such we have a great responsibility to keep the spark lit. While doing so, he manages to get in a good zinger at one of my heroes, Carl Sagan:
"No one knows what the odds are that life will evolve given an earth-like planet around a sun-like star. Sagan rates the chances at one in three. A close examination of the issue indicates that he may be off in his estimate by billions and billions."
And here's one that dates the book and is somewhat prophetic:
"Space Station Freedom is like the incredible shrinking man. It keeps getting smaller. By the time you read this it is likely to have vanished altogether."
I know of no other book like this. I really enjoyed Savage's proposed vision for space exploration, whose essentially organic and symbiotic approach is so drastically different from the sterile and minimalist approach we are so accustomed to. There is much to think about here while awake, and while dreaming.
"Let us form of ourselves an army of starship troopers, gird on our tungsten armor, and go forth to do battle with Chaos and the minions of darkness. Let us unfurl the green and golden banners of our cosmic crusade, storm the bastions of vacuum, sow our sacred seeds among the stars, and take this galaxy in the name of Life!"
The basic plan consists of eight "easy" steps, all logically flowing from one to the next: 1) foster a culture shift that allows for these big projects to happen; 2) colonize the oceans, tapping their resources while learning how to be self-sufficient; 3) engineer an efficient means for launching lots of stuff into space, using energy produced by the ocean; 4) colonize geosynchronous orbit, learning how to construct biodomes in space; 5) populate the moon, mining its resources; 6) terraform Mars; 7) colonize and exploit the asteroid belt; and 8) take to the stars once we have fully utilized the Sun's energy.
Marshall Savage supplements his plan with loads of tabulated data, on everything from the nutritional content of spirulina to the physical characteristics of the largest asteroids. But even more to my enjoyment, he makes liberal use of allusions to Norse, Greek, English, and Jewish mythologies. Indeed, many of the names he chooses for the steps are drawn from mythology. At times I think he gets a bit carried away, such as naming his proposed launch system Bifrost, after the Norse rainbow bridge to Asgard. Capsules driven halfway out of the atmosphere by a railgun are further blasted to orbit by a rainbow-hued array of lasers turning a block of ice lodged in their sterns into propellant. He tries to rationalize this scheme by asserting ice is more penetrable by white light and that different wavelengths work better for different altitudes. But I think he fell for the poetic symbolism. After all, he names the next step Asgard.
Adding to the charm are the author's numerous references to pop culture, music of the sixties and seventies, and new age spirituality. Indeed, at times the book reads like a hippy manifesto, a feeling enhanced by the book obviously having been composed on a home computer, and the author's eccentric abuse of commas and other minor grammatical infractions, and some low-budget illustrations. All the while the book strides the line between science and science fiction, true as an arrow. The book is great fodder for a budding sci-fi writer. Looking at the portrait of the author in the back, with his swarthy complexion, full head of hair, and impressive black beard, one can easily imagine Marshall Savage as some interplanetary Captain Nemo, giving a tour of one of his bubble colonies on its way to Mars. Are things as blissful as they seem? Care for some spirulina?
Later on, I was most intrigued by his idea of encapsulating and hollowing out asteroids, and building cities inside them. Trees in such low gravity would grow to titanic proportions, he tells us. I suppose when you're thinking this far out of the box, you can afford not to worry about baobabs shattering little worlds.
In the end Savage tries to convince us that we very well may be the only living things in the Universe, and as such we have a great responsibility to keep the spark lit. While doing so, he manages to get in a good zinger at one of my heroes, Carl Sagan:
"No one knows what the odds are that life will evolve given an earth-like planet around a sun-like star. Sagan rates the chances at one in three. A close examination of the issue indicates that he may be off in his estimate by billions and billions."
And here's one that dates the book and is somewhat prophetic:
"Space Station Freedom is like the incredible shrinking man. It keeps getting smaller. By the time you read this it is likely to have vanished altogether."
I know of no other book like this. I really enjoyed Savage's proposed vision for space exploration, whose essentially organic and symbiotic approach is so drastically different from the sterile and minimalist approach we are so accustomed to. There is much to think about here while awake, and while dreaming.
January 17, 2020
This book is not for the faint-hearted or anyone with a timid imagination. It is an extended manifesto trumpeting the inevitability of humans spreading life throughout the solar system, then the galaxy and then the entire cosmos.
Read the rest of the review at SciFiMind.com: https://www.scifimind.com/science-boo...
Read the rest of the review at SciFiMind.com: https://www.scifimind.com/science-boo...
October 23, 2010
Sparked a fire in me when I was in college... very interesting ideas!
October 2, 2019
This was a great read. It kept my interest almost all the way through, despite much of the book being technical details of the various environments that are part of their plan for colonizing space.
The book starts with a description of what they propose for their second big step, a floating platform in the ocean which would produce electricity from the temperature differences between warm surface water and deep cold water. It would also grow a lot of algae and seaweed. This colony, being on Earth in the middle of the ocean would also be able to grow fruits and vegetables, culture fish and shellfish, provide pure water, and many other things, some of which would have commercial value, which is good because this whole colonizing space venture will cost a lot of money.
From there, the plan is to move to bubble habitats in Earth orbit. For them, they will need to mine some asteroids to provide most of the materials. They will also need to mine the Moon for materials as well. Eventually, domed habitats will be set up on the Moon as well, and after that they will move on to terraforming Mars. Following Mars, they will go to colonizing the Asteroid Belt. Except for exploiting them for resources, they didn’t talk much about trying to colonize the outer Solar System, because the main power source will be the Sun, which isn’t bright enough to be much help at Jupiter and beyond.
They also talked about eventually moving out to nearby stars and beyond.
These are also serious plans with, as I said, a lot of technical specifications and information about what would be needed and where it might come from, and even how much it would cost (once again, a lot; most of the numbers were in billions).
Of course, the farther into space and into the future they get, the more speculative the plans. Some things, like travel to nearby stars, pre-suppose that by the time we reach that point we will have discovered technologies that will allow us to produce antimatter in quantity or some other means of getting ourselves there.
At the end, the author talks about the beginning steps that will be needed – setting up a foundation to plan all these things and to recruit people and raise money for them, and two test colonies on land to serve as proof of concept that many of the ideas needed for the later steps will work.
This space-faring civilization will apparently need to be something of a new-age utopian community. I thought when I first added the book to my list that it was a proposal being made to the government, but that is not the case. The vision is for an extra-governmental organization composed of people from all over the world. Obviously, it will need some form of government of its own, but the people involved don’t see that as being like anything currently in use by any of Earth’s nation-states, so that is still under discussion.
The second phase, the marine colony Aquarius, sounds really interesting and a lot of fun. I would like to live there myself, but I probably wouldn’t have much to offer them, so it isn’t likely. I’m definitely too old to get involved in any of the space-based plans, even if I did have any skills they would be interested in.
The book indicated that they expected construction to begin on Aquarius sometime around 2015, so I wanted to check to see if any progress had been made in that regard. I did find some websites related to the project, so it looks like people are still working on these ideas. It appears that they are working on a 2.0 version of the book, but without reading all the articles on the various websites, I can’t tell if any of the test colonies are underway yet, let alone Aquarius. Below are links to a couple of the sites in case you want to learn more about this interesting project.
https://tmp2.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
https://luf.org/t/index.php
The book starts with a description of what they propose for their second big step, a floating platform in the ocean which would produce electricity from the temperature differences between warm surface water and deep cold water. It would also grow a lot of algae and seaweed. This colony, being on Earth in the middle of the ocean would also be able to grow fruits and vegetables, culture fish and shellfish, provide pure water, and many other things, some of which would have commercial value, which is good because this whole colonizing space venture will cost a lot of money.
From there, the plan is to move to bubble habitats in Earth orbit. For them, they will need to mine some asteroids to provide most of the materials. They will also need to mine the Moon for materials as well. Eventually, domed habitats will be set up on the Moon as well, and after that they will move on to terraforming Mars. Following Mars, they will go to colonizing the Asteroid Belt. Except for exploiting them for resources, they didn’t talk much about trying to colonize the outer Solar System, because the main power source will be the Sun, which isn’t bright enough to be much help at Jupiter and beyond.
They also talked about eventually moving out to nearby stars and beyond.
These are also serious plans with, as I said, a lot of technical specifications and information about what would be needed and where it might come from, and even how much it would cost (once again, a lot; most of the numbers were in billions).
Of course, the farther into space and into the future they get, the more speculative the plans. Some things, like travel to nearby stars, pre-suppose that by the time we reach that point we will have discovered technologies that will allow us to produce antimatter in quantity or some other means of getting ourselves there.
At the end, the author talks about the beginning steps that will be needed – setting up a foundation to plan all these things and to recruit people and raise money for them, and two test colonies on land to serve as proof of concept that many of the ideas needed for the later steps will work.
This space-faring civilization will apparently need to be something of a new-age utopian community. I thought when I first added the book to my list that it was a proposal being made to the government, but that is not the case. The vision is for an extra-governmental organization composed of people from all over the world. Obviously, it will need some form of government of its own, but the people involved don’t see that as being like anything currently in use by any of Earth’s nation-states, so that is still under discussion.
The second phase, the marine colony Aquarius, sounds really interesting and a lot of fun. I would like to live there myself, but I probably wouldn’t have much to offer them, so it isn’t likely. I’m definitely too old to get involved in any of the space-based plans, even if I did have any skills they would be interested in.
The book indicated that they expected construction to begin on Aquarius sometime around 2015, so I wanted to check to see if any progress had been made in that regard. I did find some websites related to the project, so it looks like people are still working on these ideas. It appears that they are working on a 2.0 version of the book, but without reading all the articles on the various websites, I can’t tell if any of the test colonies are underway yet, let alone Aquarius. Below are links to a couple of the sites in case you want to learn more about this interesting project.
https://tmp2.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
https://luf.org/t/index.php
July 8, 2022
In the early 1990s, Marshall set out to describe a pathway to colonizing the galaxy in eight easy steps. Winging across scientific disciplines, he cites real theories and results of research to validate his vision of how humanity -- which he sees as like;y the only sentient life-form in the universe -- can paint the moon, then Mars, then other planets and asteroids, and ultimately other star systems in our galaxy and beyond by turning our backs on the plodding, politicized programs of space exploration in the early 1990s. His ideas make a great deal of sense, at least in the first phases. The narrative becomes more speculative as the timeline extends thousands of years. While Savage's ideas for HOW to move into the galaxy seem worthy of consideration, I fear he substantially overestimates the ability of humans to form the cooperative communities necessary to realize his vision. I loved the book, but was most disappointed to discover that, 20 years after its publication non of the innovative approaches to colonizing space has been tested in real life. Perhaps a testimony to his failure to take into account the nature of mankind.
August 23, 2020
'The presence of human consciousness affords the universe a feed-back loop through which it can implement choices about the future it desires. Because of us, the fabric of future reality is flexible. The presence of consciousness in the universe changes the rules of the game. Instead of the Newtonian, clock-work universe, where the past pre-ordains the future, Life has created an organic, indeterminate universe with an unpredictable future.
There is an infinite probability field of potential futures.'
There is an infinite probability field of potential futures.'
June 13, 2017
An amazing thought experiment on engineering and human ingenuity.
June 6, 2021
This book is like reading transcripts of Issac Arthur's webcasts, although it was written nearly 30 years ago. The ideas are sound, although we have yet to develop some of the simplest
Read
July 3, 2010Great idea, but...: First, let me say that I loved this book. It gave a breathtaking vision of humanity's possible future in space, and provided many of the technical details that back up some of the ideas.
However, the key word is "some." Some of the ideas are not supported by science. For example, there is no evidence that OTECs (ocean thermal energy converters) won't damage the undersea ecology, nor is there any evidence that a mass driver of any kind will work on Earth, even the one that is so poetically called "Bifrost Bridge."
Savage states that humans can spend their lives in the absence of gravity as long as they get electrical muscle stimulation. Sorry, but there's more to it than that. It's not just bone and muscle loss; astronauts in zero gravity get too much fluid in their heads; the experience is like suffering from a head cold. Also, if they spend a long time in space without gravity, then they get all kinds of chemical and hormonal imbalances. Therefore, we can't live our whole lives in gravity-free plastic bubbles. Even if we could, wouldn't a person raised without gravity be unable to stand up, let alone walk, in any kind of gravity field (even the moon's surface)?
Speaking of the moon, Savage talks about using water as a radiation shield on the moon. Excuse me? There's no water on the moon, except perhaps a little bit of polar ice. Where are we going to get the water? Carbonaceous chondrites? If we can extract water from those, why couldn't we just build an O'Neill-style space colony from lunar soil? (It takes as much energy to land on the moon as it does to get off it because the change in velocity is the same.) At least then, we could have Earth's gravity if we wanted.
I like the plan for terraforming Mars. After all, as Savage correctly states, we don't just want to put humans in space; we want to disseminate life to other planets as well. If a meteorite destroys Earth's ecology, Mars will still be safe. I know nothing about ecology--I will admit that. But from what I know of chemistry and physics, the idea is a good one. Evaporate the dry ice caps (they are made of carbon dioxide) and thus raise the temperature. Send a comet (perhaps multiple comets) crashing in to Mars to bring in some water and to liberate some carbon dioxide and water from the soil. Use algae to turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. Of course, this will take a long time--a fact Savage blithely skips over.
I also like the idea of hollowing out asteroids and using them as space habitats. Perhaps we should do that to begin with, rather than worrying about making bubbles and living without gravity. As least we can spin an asteroid for artificial gravity.
Savage's plan to get us to the stars is questionable. It involves sending a "seed ship" of 100 people and letting them grow exponentially. There are two problems with that. First, in order to have a full range of occupations and industries, a society needs at least 500,000 people--and that's with today's technology! It will probably be a lot more by the time we send out starships. A settlment of 100 people would probably be unable to survive without continuing support from Earth and it's solar system--which would be impossible from a distance of 4.3 light-years (the distance to Alpha Centauri). Second, in order for the settlement to grow, the colonists would need to have large families. That might have worked in the days of the American frontier, when women were still thought of as baby-making machines. But few women today would be willing to become baby-making machines on top of having to live light-years from their home solar system.
Also, when Savage talks about the possibility of going 99% the speed of light or more, he doesn't deal with the question of radiation. To protect from it, we're either going to need to put a lot of asteroid dust on the front of the ship (which means a lot more mass to accelerate), or we'll have to use a LOT of energy to deflect the radiation, which would create a lot of drag against the interstellar medium and thus might not even work. It could probably be done in intergalactic space, so it will be useful for going to Andromeda (2.2 million light-years from Earth) and other galaxies.
Overall, the book was a great read. It's good... as a work of science fiction. If you want technical details and scientific plausibility, read Entering Space by Robert Zubrin.
However, the key word is "some." Some of the ideas are not supported by science. For example, there is no evidence that OTECs (ocean thermal energy converters) won't damage the undersea ecology, nor is there any evidence that a mass driver of any kind will work on Earth, even the one that is so poetically called "Bifrost Bridge."
Savage states that humans can spend their lives in the absence of gravity as long as they get electrical muscle stimulation. Sorry, but there's more to it than that. It's not just bone and muscle loss; astronauts in zero gravity get too much fluid in their heads; the experience is like suffering from a head cold. Also, if they spend a long time in space without gravity, then they get all kinds of chemical and hormonal imbalances. Therefore, we can't live our whole lives in gravity-free plastic bubbles. Even if we could, wouldn't a person raised without gravity be unable to stand up, let alone walk, in any kind of gravity field (even the moon's surface)?
Speaking of the moon, Savage talks about using water as a radiation shield on the moon. Excuse me? There's no water on the moon, except perhaps a little bit of polar ice. Where are we going to get the water? Carbonaceous chondrites? If we can extract water from those, why couldn't we just build an O'Neill-style space colony from lunar soil? (It takes as much energy to land on the moon as it does to get off it because the change in velocity is the same.) At least then, we could have Earth's gravity if we wanted.
I like the plan for terraforming Mars. After all, as Savage correctly states, we don't just want to put humans in space; we want to disseminate life to other planets as well. If a meteorite destroys Earth's ecology, Mars will still be safe. I know nothing about ecology--I will admit that. But from what I know of chemistry and physics, the idea is a good one. Evaporate the dry ice caps (they are made of carbon dioxide) and thus raise the temperature. Send a comet (perhaps multiple comets) crashing in to Mars to bring in some water and to liberate some carbon dioxide and water from the soil. Use algae to turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. Of course, this will take a long time--a fact Savage blithely skips over.
I also like the idea of hollowing out asteroids and using them as space habitats. Perhaps we should do that to begin with, rather than worrying about making bubbles and living without gravity. As least we can spin an asteroid for artificial gravity.
Savage's plan to get us to the stars is questionable. It involves sending a "seed ship" of 100 people and letting them grow exponentially. There are two problems with that. First, in order to have a full range of occupations and industries, a society needs at least 500,000 people--and that's with today's technology! It will probably be a lot more by the time we send out starships. A settlment of 100 people would probably be unable to survive without continuing support from Earth and it's solar system--which would be impossible from a distance of 4.3 light-years (the distance to Alpha Centauri). Second, in order for the settlement to grow, the colonists would need to have large families. That might have worked in the days of the American frontier, when women were still thought of as baby-making machines. But few women today would be willing to become baby-making machines on top of having to live light-years from their home solar system.
Also, when Savage talks about the possibility of going 99% the speed of light or more, he doesn't deal with the question of radiation. To protect from it, we're either going to need to put a lot of asteroid dust on the front of the ship (which means a lot more mass to accelerate), or we'll have to use a LOT of energy to deflect the radiation, which would create a lot of drag against the interstellar medium and thus might not even work. It could probably be done in intergalactic space, so it will be useful for going to Andromeda (2.2 million light-years from Earth) and other galaxies.
Overall, the book was a great read. It's good... as a work of science fiction. If you want technical details and scientific plausibility, read Entering Space by Robert Zubrin.
January 14, 2014
There are many people on this world who do not perceive any sense of hope or direction for a future of Mankind..some of them just might find it in this visionary and insightful book written in an outlined but prosaic style by a charming and intrepid man Marshall T. Savage (who has since gone into hiatus.) This book is one that has inspired me for over a decade, to see and do things a bit differently than convention proscribes. Though I was already quite unconventional, it helped me find a more unconventionally positive outlook. It even inspired me to purchase a novelty deed to a tract of land on the lunar surface..perhaps someday my children's grandchildren will be able to land there, enshrine my ashes, and build something new and great for themselves and others. Note: I have the hardcover edition by Empyrean books but I selected this edition because it has a cover similar to the one that mine came with..and not the default Goodreads logo. The book has an active fan community on the web and social networking interested in fulfilling some or all of its technically viable concepts. Visit LUF.org to learn more about the real life efforts of TMP enthusiasts and the rest of the space age explorers who support them..
Btw don't worry about spoilers on the web..if you don't read the book you'll probably not know what your looking at anyway... ;P
Btw don't worry about spoilers on the web..if you don't read the book you'll probably not know what your looking at anyway... ;P
July 16, 2014
A lot of good ideas in this book, but some of the suggestions or solutions that he makes are questionable. I haven't had a chance to go through his sources, but don't go into this thinking that everything is going to be completely realistic. The later stages of the book were more interesting to me because he expands more upon the timeline of human expansion as well as the reasonable ways in which humanity could travel throughout the galaxy. At the very least, this book piqued my interest on the subject and I'm currently checking out several other books with the same premise.
December 26, 2016
The book reads like science fiction, but most of the things in the initial chapters are already science fact as of my writing this review. Where once some reviewers (on Amazon.com) thought it was pure fantasy, today a few of the initial chapters' technological suggestions can actually be done using modern cutting-edge equipment like 3D printers, rain guns, etc.
An excellent book, but due to its ambitious scope, I would suggest people read it with a dose of salt and the understanding that this project is for the long-term, e.g. not the kind that can be begun & completed within one lifetime.
An excellent book, but due to its ambitious scope, I would suggest people read it with a dose of salt and the understanding that this project is for the long-term, e.g. not the kind that can be begun & completed within one lifetime.
Read
April 24, 2009My father was working on OTECs in Hawaii during the 1980s, and I understand many small tropical island nations are now working on them. I haven't seen an update of this book, so I don't know how problems like changes in temperatures at ocean depths, or the growing acidity of oceans would be dealt with.
July 5, 2013
Is this book really about what the title indicates ? My background in SF leads me to seek out works on generation starships, the L-5 society, ram-scoop propulsion and the like. Latest data on background radiation leads me to think interstellar travel may always remain an "F" in SF. Unhappy thought.
July 21, 2012
Laughable in retrospect, none the less, this work in what I'll call (for lack of a better phrase) "speculative engineering" is great just in terms of its scope and detail. In Millenial Project, Marshall Savage (in seriousness) attempts to plot out, in detail, a possible course for humanity to colonize the galaxy by the year 3000.
April 25, 2009
The author argues for a technological and political path toward colonizing the stars. I believe the science is fairly good, however the politics and social understanding is that of a fanatic. This makes for a good source for science fiction ideas.
January 2, 2011
amazing concept, well thought out. this is NOT a sci-fi book. Savage articulates a vision of the future that is elegant and idealistic, while also being attainable (at least in principle)..one of the 50 books that really changed my life..
June 25, 2011
I love this book! I've never met a book that states it's goal in the title quite so boldly or so accurately. I've contacted "The Living Universe Foundation" for permission to base a whole series of scifi novels on this non-fiction work.
June 24, 2012
One of the best books I have ever read. On the way back from buying it I got so lost in the book I missed the train stop and had to walk an extra two miles to get home. Can't fault the book or any of the ideas! Buy this book if you are interested in space travel.
February 6, 2014
Science fiction.
Or is it?
Compelling ideas that are tantalisingly plausible.
The society, politics, even human nature, the author paints in his sunlit utopia is nothing like ours, and that's why this is science fiction, but it's still an inspiring journey.
Or is it?
Compelling ideas that are tantalisingly plausible.
The society, politics, even human nature, the author paints in his sunlit utopia is nothing like ours, and that's why this is science fiction, but it's still an inspiring journey.
May 24, 2014
I read this at some point early during my time in high school and put it up there with only a few other books that rate as 'life-changing.' Most of my desire to leave Earth and belief that we can actually do it came from this book.
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November 17, 2008Just ignore the collectivist ideas.
October 8, 2011
A fascinating read about the future of space travel--although a bit ambitious. It gets three stars since I get the feeling that all the technical matters are not precisely worked out.
February 24, 2012
I have read this book yearly.
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