http://bactra.org/notebooks Cosma's Notebooks en http://bactra.org/notebooks/2009/10/10#space <blockquote><em>Someday we'll walk on Venus <br>Someday we'll walk on Mars</em></blockquote> <ul>Recommended (obviously, a tiny selection): <li>Milan M. Cirkovic <ul> <li>"Too Early? On the Apparent Conflict of Astrobiology and Cosmology", <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0505006">astro-ph/0505006</a> = <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10539-005-8305-2"><cite>Biology and Philosohpy</cite> <strong>21</strong> (2006): 369--379</a> </ul> <li>Freeman Dyson, <cite>Infinite in All Directions</cite> <li>Leonard A. McGee and Stanley F. Schmidt, "Discovery of the Kalman Filter as a Practical Tool for Aerospace and Industry", NASA Technical Memorandum 86847 (1985) [How we learned to aim for the stars and/or hit London. <a href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19860003843_1986003843.pdf">Free PDF</a>.] <li>Carl Sagan, <cite>Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space</cite> </ul> <ul>To read: <li>George Basalla, <cite>Mirror Worlds: Scientific Perceptions of Extraterrestrial Civilizations</cite> <li>Marina Benjamin, <cite>Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond</cite> <li>Bromberg, <cite>NASA and the Space Industry</cite> <li>Matthew Brzezinski, <cite>Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age</cite> <li>Serge Brunier, <cite>Space Odyssey: The First Forty Years of Space Exploration</cite> [<a href="http://cambridge.org/9780521813563">blurb</a>] <li>Burrows, <citE>This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age</cite> <li>Deborah Cadbury, <cite>Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space</cite> <li>Helen Caldicott and Craig Eisendrath, <cite>War in Heaven: The Arms Race in Outer Space</cite> <li>Milan M. Cirkovic <ul> <li>"The Anthropic Principle and the Duration of the Cosmological Past", <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0505005">astro-ph/0505005</a> <li>and Robert J. Bradbury, "Galactic Gradients, Postbiological Evolution and the Apparent Failure of SETI", <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0506110">astro-ph/0506110</a> </ul> <li>Arthur Clarke, <cite>The Exploration of Space</cite> <li>Steven J. Dick <ul> <li><cite>The Biological Universe: The Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science</cite> [<a href="http://www.cup.org/Titles/34/0521343267.html">Blurb</a>] <li><cite>Life on Other Worlds: The 20th Century Extraterrestrial Life debate</cite> [<a href="http://dannyreviews.com/h/Life_Other_Worlds.html">Review by Danny Yee</a>] </ul> <li>George Dyson, <cite>Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship</cite> [Or, "What did you do during the Cold War, Daddy?"] <li>Giancarlo Genta and Michael J. Rycroft, <cite>Space, the Final Frontier?</cite> <li>David Grinspoon, <cite>Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life</cite> <li>Karl S. Guthke, <cite>The Last Frontier: Imagining Other Worlds, from the Copernican Revolution to Modern Science Fiction</cite> <li>James Harford, <cite>Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon</cite> <li>Stephen B. Johnson, <cite>The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs</cite> <li>Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles, <cite>Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space</cite> [<a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/0-262-61213-5">Blurb</a>] <li>David Lamb, <cite>The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: A Philosophical Inquiry</cite> <li>Lavey, <cite>Late for the Sky: Mentality of the Space Age</cite> <li>Mario Livi et al. (eds.), <cite>Astrophysics of Life</cite> <li>Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, <cite>Lost Moon</cite> [<a href="http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~anoop/weblog/archives/000026.html">Review</a> at Special Circumstances. "The story is not about heroism or miracles but rather about training, design and expertise which surprisingly turns out to be much more interesting."] <li>McCurdy <ul> <li><citE>Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program</cite> <li><cite>Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program</cite> </ul> <li>McDougall, <cite>...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age</cite> <li>Michael Neufeld, <cite>Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War</cite> <li>Liam Sarsfield, <cite>The Cosmos on a Shoestring: Small Spacecraft for Space and Earth Science</cite> <li>Seth Shostak and Alexandra Barnett, <cite>Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe</cite> [<a href="http://cambridge.org/0521822335">blurb</a>] <li>Asif A Siddiqi, <cite>Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge</cite> <li>Glenn D. Starkman and Roberto Trotta, "Why Anthropic Reasoning Cannot Predict \Lambda", <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.201301"><cite>Physical Review Letters</cite> <strong>97</strong> (2006): 201301</a> = <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0607227">astro-ph/0607227</a> <li>Robert Zubrin, <cite>Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization</cite> </ul>