Summer Reading for Space Enthusiasts
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module on the moon. The historical event ended the Space Race and incited future possibilities to colonize, explore, and weaponize space. From Space Settlements to Space as a Strategic Asset to Mankind Beyond Earth to Earth and World, our books discuss international policies, space technology, the human relationship with the Earth and space, and more!
Read up on our new releases and enter our drawing for your chance to win a copy of Earth and World: Philosophy After the Apollo Mission.
New from our Contemporary Asia in the World series.
Asia’s Space Race
National Motivations, Regional Rivalries, and International Risks
James Clay Moltz
In contrast to the close cooperation practiced among European states, space relations among Asian states have become increasingly tense. If current trends continue, the Asian civilian space competition could become a military race. To better understand these emerging dynamics, James Clay Moltz conducts the first in-depth policy analysis of Asia’s fourteen leading space programs, concentrating especially on developments in China, Japan, India, and South Korea.
New from Columbia Books on Architecture and the City.
Space Settlements
Fred Scharmen
In the summer of 1975, NASA brought together a team of physicists, engineers, and space scientists—along with architects, urban planners, and artists—to design large-scale space habitats for millions of people.
Two painters, the artist and architect Rick Guidice and the planetary science illustrator Don Davis, created renderings for the project. A product of its time, this work is nevertheless relevant to contemporary modes of thinking about architecture. Space Settlements examines these plans for life in space as serious architectural and spatial proposals.
The Universe as It Really Is
Earth, Space, Matter, and Time
Thomas R. Scott, with the assistance of James Lawrence Powell
In this book, Thomas R. Scott ventures into the known and the unknown to explain our universe and the laws that govern it. The Universe as It Really Is begins with physics and the building blocks of the universe—time, gravity, light, and elementary particles—and chemistry’s ability to explain the interactions among them. Scott, with the assistance of James Lawrence Powell, next tours the earth and atmospheric sciences to explain the forces that shape our planet and then takes off for the stars to describe our place in the cosmos. He provides vivid introductions to our collective scientific inheritance, narrating discoveries such as the shape of the atom and the nature of the nucleus or how we use GPS to measure time and what that has to do with relativity. A clear demonstration of the power of scientific reasoning to bring the incomprehensible within our grasp, The Universe as It Really Is gives an engrossing account of just how much we do understand about the world around us.
From the Backlist
The Traveler’s Guide to Space
For One-Way Settlers and Round-Trip Tourists
Neil F. Comins
Astronomer and former NASA/ASEE scientist Neil F. Comins has written the go-to book for anyone interested in space exploration. If you have ever wondered about space travel, now you have the opportunity to understand it more fully than ever before. Traveling into space and even emigrating to nearby worlds may soon become part of the human experience. Scientists, engineers, and investors are working hard to make space tourism and colonization a reality. As astronauts can attest, extraterrestrial travel is incomparably thrilling. To make the most of the experience requires serious physical and mental adaptations in virtually every aspect of life, from eating to intimacy. Everyone who goes into space sees Earth and life on it from a profoundly different perspective than they had before liftoff.
Mankind Beyond Earth
The History, Science, and Future of Human Space Exploration
Claude A. Piantadosi
Seeking to reenergize Americans’ passion for the space program, the value of further exploration of the Moon, and the importance of human beings on the final frontier, Claude A. Piantadosi presents a rich history of American space exploration and its major achievements. He emphasizes the importance of reclaiming national command of our manned program and continuing our unmanned space missions, and he stresses the many adventures that still await us in the unfolding universe. Acknowledging space exploration’s practical and financial obstacles, Piantadosi challenges us to revitalize American leadership in space exploration in order to reap its scientific bounty.
Earth and World
Philosophy After the Apollo Missions
Kelly Oliver
Critically engaging the work of Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida together with her own observations on contemporary politics, environmental degradation, and the pursuit of a just and sustainable world, Kelly Oliver lays the groundwork for a politics and ethics that embraces otherness without exploiting difference. Rooted firmly in human beings’ relationship to the planet and to each other, Oliver shows peace is possible only if we maintain our ties to earth and world.
Crowded Orbits
Conflict and Cooperation in Space
James Clay Moltz
Space has become increasingly crowded since the end of the Cold War, with new countries, companies, and even private citizens operating satellites and becoming spacefarers. This book offers general readers a valuable primer on space policy from an international perspective. It examines the competing themes of space competition and cooperation while providing readers with an understanding of the basics of space technology, diplomacy, commerce, science, and military applications.
Space as a Strategic Asset
Joan Johnson-Freese
Joan Johnson-Freese argues that the race for space weapons and the U.S. quest for exclusive or at least dominant ownership of strategic space assets have alienated the very allies that the United States needs in order to maintain its leading role in space exploration. Taking a balanced look at the issues that have contributed to the decline of America’s manned space program, such as lack of political support and funding, Johnson-Freese offers not only a critique but also a plan for enhancing U.S. space security through cooperation rather than competition.