Christopher Wanjek

I feel like I have a reasonably strong interest in space exploration - I am aware that SpaceX is launching people into space and that China has grandiose plans for a moon base. Other than that I know very little about current exploration plans and if Mars One ever amounted to anything. This book makes an excellent addition to the body of knowledge about space exploration. Wanjek goes in great detail about the current plans for human trips to low Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. There is also a significant review of the history of space travel and discussion about why we still have not yet gone back to the Moon. He does this in a manner that is both deeply researched and practical as well as affable and not overly technical. The book does suffer from frequent interjections from the author that can be infuriatingly facetious and condescending but maybe this is just a natural response to Wanjek likely reading through many pages of technical manuscripts from NASA. On the whole I would suggest this book to anyone with a passing interest in space exploration.… (altro)

Wanjek, Christopher. Spacefarers: How Humans Will Settle the Moon, Mars, and Beyond. Harvard UP, 2020.
Science writer Christopher Wanjek is nowhere near as optimistic about near-off-planet space colonies as his subtitle makes it sound. He is cold-eyed about the politics and economics of space exploration. He gives Johnson more credit for the moon landing than Kennedy and argues that if Nixon had won the 1964 election, the moon landing would not have happened. The space shuttle program was, to say the least, inefficient. Near future efforts in space will probably be motivated by an attempt to make a profit, through space tourism perhaps, or by political competition with China. Settlements on the moon will be more like settlements on Antarctica than anything more romantic. Permanent settlement will depend on whether or not low-gravity interferes with human gestation. Mars is the best hope for permanent residency, but he explains why farming on Mars is not easy. Perchlorates in the Martian regolith, for example, would have made any potatoes Mark Watney grew there poisonous. Wanjek is ultimately hopeful about human futures in space, but he does not underestimate the challenges or the time it will take to get there.… (altro)