The Ross 248 Project

The Ross 248 Project PDF Author: Les Johnson
Publisher: Baen Books
ISBN: 1625799144
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 497

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Book Description
HUMANITY’S HOPE FOR A BETTER FUTURE AT A NEW STAR A bold journey into a future where humanity and its children travel to a new star where they must overcome the unexpected challenges on the exoplanets that await them—or die trying. Traveling to the stars will be difficult, but not, perhaps, the most difficult part. What about when we get to another star? What then? Will the planets be immediately habitable? Not likely. Will those who undertook the journey be able to easily turn around and come home if they don’t find “Earth 2.0?” Almost certainly not. Therein the lies the challenge: Finding worlds that are potentially habitable and then taking the time, perhaps centuries, to make them compatible with Earth life. They will encounter mysteries and unexpected challenges, but the human spirit will endure. Join this diverse group of science fiction writers and scientists as they take up the challenge of The Ross 248 Project. Contributors: USAF General Steven Kwast Patrick Chiles Stephanie Osborn Brent Ziarnick Laura Montgomery Daniel M. Hoyt & E. Marshall Hoyt Matthew Williams D. J. Butler Robert E. Hampson Monalisa Foster J. L. Curtis K. S. Daniels Les Johnson & Ken Roy At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About A Traveler’s Guide to the Stars by Les Johnson: “We effortlessly travel round and round our sun, and we wonder: How hard would it be, really, to travel to another star? Les Johnson shows us the rocket science we’d need; that’s easy enough. But then he describes with wonderful detail the Starshot nanocrafts, chipsats, Starwisps, worldships, and metamaterial LightSails that we might use. It’s a flight of imagination backed up with real out-of-this-world science.” —Bill Nye “Les Johnson is that rare breed of writer who can make rocket science comprehensible even to the layperson. He has more than paid his dues in the field, and his enthusiasm for the cause of interstellar exploration shines through. But so does his sense of humor, his humanity, and his zest for life. This is highly recommended stuff.” —David Weber “Is humanity ready to take on the immensities outside our solar system? This traveler’s guide lays out methods and means that may enable our first steps into the great unknown beyond the sun’s familiar campfire.” —David Brin About Mission to Methone: “The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well in Johnson’s old-fashioned first-contact novel, set in 2068. . . . There’s a great deal here for fans of early hard SF.” —Publishers Weekly About The Spacetime War: “Johnson, a NASA physicist, brings verisimilitude and scientific accuracy to this adventure, and his passion for the details of space travel will undoubtedly please readers looking for old-school hard science fiction. His narrative enjoys a slow-building sense of development as he gradually unravels multiple mysteries . . . Johnson’s fans will find plenty to enjoy.” —Publishers Weekly

The Ross 248 Project

The Ross 248 Project PDF Author: Les Johnson
Publisher: Baen Books
ISBN: 1625799144
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Get Book

Book Description
HUMANITY’S HOPE FOR A BETTER FUTURE AT A NEW STAR A bold journey into a future where humanity and its children travel to a new star where they must overcome the unexpected challenges on the exoplanets that await them—or die trying. Traveling to the stars will be difficult, but not, perhaps, the most difficult part. What about when we get to another star? What then? Will the planets be immediately habitable? Not likely. Will those who undertook the journey be able to easily turn around and come home if they don’t find “Earth 2.0?” Almost certainly not. Therein the lies the challenge: Finding worlds that are potentially habitable and then taking the time, perhaps centuries, to make them compatible with Earth life. They will encounter mysteries and unexpected challenges, but the human spirit will endure. Join this diverse group of science fiction writers and scientists as they take up the challenge of The Ross 248 Project. Contributors: USAF General Steven Kwast Patrick Chiles Stephanie Osborn Brent Ziarnick Laura Montgomery Daniel M. Hoyt & E. Marshall Hoyt Matthew Williams D. J. Butler Robert E. Hampson Monalisa Foster J. L. Curtis K. S. Daniels Les Johnson & Ken Roy At the publisher’s request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About A Traveler’s Guide to the Stars by Les Johnson: “We effortlessly travel round and round our sun, and we wonder: How hard would it be, really, to travel to another star? Les Johnson shows us the rocket science we’d need; that’s easy enough. But then he describes with wonderful detail the Starshot nanocrafts, chipsats, Starwisps, worldships, and metamaterial LightSails that we might use. It’s a flight of imagination backed up with real out-of-this-world science.” —Bill Nye “Les Johnson is that rare breed of writer who can make rocket science comprehensible even to the layperson. He has more than paid his dues in the field, and his enthusiasm for the cause of interstellar exploration shines through. But so does his sense of humor, his humanity, and his zest for life. This is highly recommended stuff.” —David Weber “Is humanity ready to take on the immensities outside our solar system? This traveler’s guide lays out methods and means that may enable our first steps into the great unknown beyond the sun’s familiar campfire.” —David Brin About Mission to Methone: “The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well in Johnson’s old-fashioned first-contact novel, set in 2068. . . . There’s a great deal here for fans of early hard SF.” —Publishers Weekly About The Spacetime War: “Johnson, a NASA physicist, brings verisimilitude and scientific accuracy to this adventure, and his passion for the details of space travel will undoubtedly please readers looking for old-school hard science fiction. His narrative enjoys a slow-building sense of development as he gradually unravels multiple mysteries . . . Johnson’s fans will find plenty to enjoy.” —Publishers Weekly

Living Off the Land in Space

Living Off the Land in Space PDF Author: C Bangs
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387360549
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
This book presents a visionary concept for future development of space travel. It describes the enabling technology for future propulsion concepts and demonstrates how mankind will ‘live off the land in space’ in migration from Earth. For the next few millennia at least (barring breakthroughs), the human frontier will include the solar system and the nearest stars. Will it be better to settle the Moon, Mars, or a nearby asteroid and what environments can we expect to find in the vicinity of nearby stars? These are questions that need to be answered if mankind is to migrate into space.

Solar Sails

Solar Sails PDF Author: Giovanni Vulpetti
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387685006
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Solar sail technology is very close to becoming an engineering reality and it will soon be used in the exploration of the solar system and beyond. This fascinating book provides an accessible introduction to solar sails and details how they work and what they will be used for in the exploration of space. It also examines current plans for solar sails and how advanced technology, such as nanotechnology, might enhance their performance. Coverage shows how solar sail propulsion will make space exploration more affordable and demonstrates how access to destinations within (and beyond) the solar system will become within reach.

Theaters of the Everyday

Theaters of the Everyday PDF Author: Jacob Gallagher-Ross
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810136686
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Theaters of the Everyday: Aesthetic Democracy on the American Stage reveals a vital but little-recognized current in American theatrical history: the dramatic representation of the quotidian and mundane. Jacob Gallagher-Ross shows how twentieth-century American theater became a space for negotiating the demands of innovative form and democratic availability. Offering both fresh reappraisals of canonical figures and movements and new examinations of theatrical innovators, Theaters of the Everyday reveals surprising affinities between artists often considered poles apart, such as John Cage and Lee Strasberg, and Thornton Wilder and the New York experimentalist Nature Theater of Oklahoma. Gallagher-Ross persuasively shows how these creators eschew conventional definitions of dramatic action and focus attention on smaller but no less profound dramas of perception, consciousness, and day-to-day life. Gallagher-Ross traces some of the intellectual roots of the theater of the everyday to American transcendentalism, with its pragmatic process philosophy as well as its sense of ordinary experience as the wellspring of aesthetic awareness.

Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology

Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology PDF Author: Stan Goldstein
Publisher: Star Trek
ISBN: 9780671790899
Category : Interplanetary voyages.
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Covers the history of space flight from the beginning of the twentieth century through the year 2202, with the story of man's conquest of the stars chronicled in illustrations and star maps

Going Interstellar

Going Interstellar PDF Author: Les Johnson
Publisher: Baen
ISBN: 9781982125615
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
ONE THING WE CAN ALL AGREE ON: HARD SF AT ITS BEST. A collection of tales by an all-star assortment of award winning authors including Ben Bova, Mike Resnick, Jack McDevitt, Michael Bishop, Sarah A. Hoyt, and more, together with essays on high technology by space scientists and engineers—all taking on new methods of star travel. BUILD STARSHIPS NOW Some humans may be content staying in one place, but many of us are curious about what’s beyond the next village, the next ocean, the next horizon. Are there others like us out there? How will we reach them? Others are concerned with the survival of the species. It may be that we have to get out of Dodge before the lights go out on Earth. How can we accomplish this? Wonderful questions. Now get ready for some answers. Here is the science behind interstellar propulsion: reports from top tier scientists and engineers on starflight propulsion techniques that use only means and methods that we currently know are scientifically possible. Here are in-depth essays on antimatter containment, solar sails, and fusion propulsion. And the human consequences? Here is speculation by a magnificent array of award-winning SF writers on what an interstellar voyage might look like, might feel like—might be like. It’s an all-star cast abounding with Hugo and Nebula award winners: Ben Bova, Mike Resnick, Jack McDevitt, Michael Bishop, Sarah A. Hoyt, and more. Comprehensive teacher's guide available. About Stellaris: People of the Stars, coedited by Les Johnson: “[A] thought-provoking look at a selection of real-world challenges and speculative fiction solutions. . . . Readers will enjoy this collection that is as educational as it is entertaining.”—Booklist “This was an enjoyable collection of science fiction dealing with colonizing the stars. In the collection were several gems and the overall quality was high.”—Tangent About Mission to Methone, by Les Johnson: “The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well in Johnson’s old-fashioned first-contact novel, set in 2068. . . . includes plenty of realistic detail and puts fun new spins on familiar alien concepts. . . . There’s a great deal here for fans of early hard SF.”—Publishers Weekly “With equal parts science fiction and international intrigue. . . . an exciting, fast-paced read that you will not want to put down.”—Booklist About Rescue Mode, by Ben Bova and Les Johnson: “. . . a suspenseful and compelling narrative of the first human spaceflight to Mars.”—Booklist About Jack McDevitt: “The logical heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.”—Stephen King “‘Why read Jack McDevitt?’ The question should be: ‘Who among us is such a slow pony that s/he isn’t reading McDevitt?’”—Harlan Ellison “You should definitely read Jack McDevitt.”—Gregory Benford

Saving Proxima

Saving Proxima PDF Author: Travis S. Taylor
Publisher: Baen Books
ISBN: 1625798164
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
The year is 2072. At the lunar farside radio observatory, an old school radio broadcast is detected, similar to those broadcast on Earth in the 1940s and early 1950s, but in an unknown language, coming from an impossible source, and originating at an equally impossible location—Proxima Centauri. While the nations of Earth debate making First Contact, they learn that the Proximans are facing an extinction-level disaster, forcing a decision: Will Earth send a ship on a multiyear trip to provide aid? Interstellar travel is not easy, and by traveling at the speeds required to arrive before disaster strikes at Proxima, humans will learn firsthand the effects of Einstein’s Special Relativity and be forced to ponder the ultimate of questions of "Are we alone in the universe?" and "What does it mean to be human?" At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About Travis S. Taylor: “[E]xplodes with inventive action.”—Publishers Weekly on Travis S. Taylor’s The Quantum Connection “[Warp Speed] reads like Doc Smith writing Robert Ludlum . . . You won’t want to put it down.”—John Ringo

Sky Alert!

Sky Alert! PDF Author: Les Johnson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461418305
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
“Sky Alert! What Happens When Satellites Fail” explores for the first time what our modern world would be like if we were suddenly to lose most, if not all, of our space assets. The author demonstrates humankind’s dependence on space satellites and show what might happen to various aspects of our economy, defense, and daily lives if they were suddenly destroyed. The book opens with a consideration of how our space assets might be lost in the first place: through orbital debris, war, and solar storms. The author then looks at what would happen if our satellites were lost, including the effect on weather forecasting, and the Global Positioning System, explaining GPS in detail and its importance to the military, including spy satellites and military reconnaissance, commerce, civilians, communications and remote sensing – both resource monitoring and locating and environmental monitoring and science. The effects of losing such assets as the International Space Station as well as such research satellites as the Hubble Space Telescope or the Chandra X-Ray Observatory are also considered. Part III of the book looks at how we can protect our satellites, preparing for the worst, reducing the growth and amount of orbital debris, preventing acts of war in space and hardening against space radiation. The book ends on an optimistic note: most spacefaring nations are now working together to develop new technologies to reduce the threat posed by orbital debris and in-space nuclear detonations and treaties exist to limit the development and use of weapons in space. Finally, it is hoped that it will not be long before we will be able to better predict and take precautions against solar storms. The global economy has now become so dependent upon satellites that their loss would be devastating – to the economy, to national security, and potentially, to the day-to-day survival of those who live in the world’s most advanced economies.

Paradise Regained

Paradise Regained PDF Author: Greg Matloff
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387799869
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
What was our planet like before the advent of our modern civilization? What effects has our civilization had on the planet and its ecological systems? Paradise Regained discusses these questions and then creates a scenario for the re-greening of Earth. The authors introduce new and innovative ideas on how humankind might use the resources of the solar system for terrestrial benefit. Earth would then become a place for a technologically advanced human civilization to live in synchronization, if not in harmony, with the environment which gave us birth. Since the formation of our solar system, the resources and ecological state of Earth have undergone many changes. The environmental challenges facing humanity today, as the authors posit them, will not be resolved simply by conservation and Earth-based alternative technologies. Paradise Regained considers the environmental dilemma and highlights the risk of humankind's future extinction from environmental degradation. Human population growth, climate change, and the strained sustainability of the few remaining habitats for wild life are all discussed. The authors, however, are not discouraged and offer a potential solution through the development of space. Not only will extraterrestrial resources help avert environmental disaster, but will also provide the basis for continued technological and societal progress. The resources of the solar system will help meet our projected industrial needs and feed our industry once terrestrial sources are depleted. Space-based power generation systems will work synergistically with Earth-based conservation. Paradise Regained concludes with the discussion on how closed ecological systems in space will help us to build a prosperous and sustainable future for all humanity.

The Spacetime War

The Spacetime War PDF Author: Les Johnson
Publisher: Baen Books
ISBN: 1625798423
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
A BRILLIANT BLEND OF MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE-LEVEL SPECULATIVE WONDER BY A WORKING SPACE SCIENTIST! NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT Humanity has finally made it to the stars. Colony worlds thrive and there is general peace among the settled systems. Until now. Matte black ships of an advanced design appear in colonial systems. Their drives and weapons are not extremely advanced beyond their Terran counterparts — just superior enough to be utterly devastating. Colonies and their populations are obliterated. Once settled worlds are rendered radioactive wastelands. Earth herself lies defenseless before the marauding enemy. DEFEND THE SKIES OF EARTH Standing against the invasion are two of humanity’s finest starship captains, Winslow Price of the British Space Navy and Anika Ahuja of the Indian Space Forces. Compatriots. Fierce competitors. Former lovers. Now they are on a quest that will plumb the scientific wells of existence itself, where the primordial knot of spacetime may be unraveling. Price and Ahuja are sworn to do whatever it takes to defend Earth and humanity from ultimate obliteration by an enemy that will not even speak its name. Even if it pushes each to the brink of life and death in battle. Even if it leads each beyond space and time—and to the edge of ultimate possibility! TAKE THE BATTLE TO THE STARS About Mission to Methone: “The spirit of Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries is alive and well in Johnson’s old-fashioned first-contact novel, set in 2068. . . . includes plenty of realistic detail and puts fun new spins on familiar alien concepts. . . . There’s a great deal here for fans of early hard SF.”—Publishers Weekly “With equal parts science fiction and international intrigue . . . an exciting, fast-paced read that you will not want to put down.”—Booklist About Rescue Mode by Ben Bova and Les Johnson: “. . . a suspenseful and compelling narrative of the first human spaceflight to Mars.”—Booklist