Atheistically Speaking Book Club discussion

This is the discussion thread for the third quarter of Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space:

13. The Gift of Apollo
14. Exploring Other Worlds and Protecting This One
15. The Gates of the Wonder Worlds Open
16. Scaling Heaven
17. Routine Interplanetary Violence

This section of the book was also a bit dated, but I liked the look into the history and politics of the space race and science funding. He actually took apart a lot of the common reasons used for giving more funding to NASA, and took a long look at whether we should be using that money to do better things on earth instead.

I enjoyed this section with the discussion of space exploration. Up until a few years ago I assumed that everyone who was interested in the subject wanted manned (womanned) space exploration. It turns out that is not true. Many people, scientists included, consider it too expensive and argue for continued robotic exploration as a cheaper alternative. Some of these arguments are discussed here. I should have read this book when it was first published.

This section also reminded me of The Martian which I read last year and really enjoyed. The movie is coming out this fall.