Star Settlers: The Billionaires, Geniuses, and Crazed Visionaries Out to Conquer the Universe

by Fred Nadis

Overview

The story behind the elite scientists, technologists, SF enthusiasts, and billionaires who believe that humanity’s destiny is to populate the stars . . .

Does humanity have a destiny “in the stars?” Should a species triggering massive extinctions on its own planet instead stay put? This new book traces the waxing and waning of interest in space settlement through the decades, and offers a journalistic tour through the influential subculture attempting to shape a multiplanetary future.

What motivates figures such as billionaires Elon Musk and Yuri Milner? How important have science fiction authors and filmmakers been in stirring enthusiasm for actual space exploration and settlement? Is there a coherent motivating philosophy and ethic behind the spacefaring dream?

Star Settlers offers both a historical perspective and a journalistic window into a peculiar subculture packed with members of the scientific, intellectual, and economic elite. This timely work captures the extra-scientific zeal for space travel and settlement, places it in its historical context, and tackles the somewhat surreal conceptions underlying the enterprise and prognoses for its future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643134482
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Fred Nadis was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in the Public Understanding of Science and Technology program for Star Settlers. He has a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He has authored two prior books, Wonder Shows: Performing Science, Magic, and Religion in America, and The Man from Mars: Ray Palmer's Amazing Pulp Journey, a Locus Nonfiction Award Finalist. He has published essays in the Atlantic and Vanity Fair online and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Science and Popular Culture. Learn more at frednadis.com.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Chapter 1 Mars Mania 1.0 9

Chapter 2 Rocketeers 29

Chapter 3 Von Braun 51

Chapter 4 Modern Conquerors of Mars 71

Chapter 5 Space Colonies 95

Chapter 6 Biosphere 2 119

Chapter 7 Making Space Fun Again 143

Chapter 8 The Moon 165

Chapter 9 Going Interstellar 193

Chapter 10 The Metaphysical Lure of Deep Space 219

Chapter 11 The Space Rave 243

Acknowledgments 251

Endnotes 253

Index 273

Editorial Reviews

05/25/2020

Science journalist Nadis (The Man from Mars) delivers a thought-provoking look at the scientists, space fans, and industrialists determined to settle humanity among the stars. The author spotlights early science fiction works, such as Jules Verne’s 1865 From the Earth to the Moon, as the fuel that powered the imaginations of rocketry pioneers including Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, American Robert Goddard, and “German rocket scientist turned Space Age idol” Wernher von Braun. Today, billionaires Jeff Bezos (himself inspired by Star Trek) and Elon Musk, as well as other moguls, oversee their own private rocket firms, motivated both by the chance of profit—such as through tourism or mining—and the dream of helping humanity escape climate change and other pressing terrestrial problems. Nadis shows where these futurists diverge in their goals—some, like Bezos, believe humanity’s best chance lies in moving to orbiting space colonies, while others look to Mars, among them Musk and aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society. What Nadis finds they all have in common is a passionate vision, summed up by astronomer Carl Sagan’s declaration that “all civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct,” which Nadis finds both inspiring and unrealistic. With this grounded but far-reaching treatise, Nadis introduces readers to some fascinating dreams of the future. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Nadis is an excellent writer—the prose flows easily off the page and into your mind. I call this “transparent writing”—writing so lucid you don’t feel like you are reading, but that the ideas are zipping directly into your brain. Nadis has done extensive personal research to support the book, including journeys to interesting places and interviews with long-time but little-known space settlement advocates like Peter Kokh, editor of the Moon Miner’s Manifesto and distinguished NSS leader."

National Space Society

"Through keen insights, humorous anecdotes, and personal details, Star Settlers pulls us lightyears away while keeping its feet firmly planted on the Earth.

Paul Sutter

"Star Settlers is a brilliant survey of a long century of schemes for the human colonization of the heavens and the eccentric promoters who have launched them, from Wernher von Braun to Elon Musk. Combining a historian’s insights with a keen sense of character, detail, and good humor, Fred Nadis traces the trajectory of our utopian spacefaring dreams in a way it has never been mapped.

Christopher Brown

"Makes a lasting imprint. Entertaining."

PhD] The Wall Street Journal [praise for Fred Nadis

"Well-written and entertaining. Invaluable insights into the science fiction world.”"

PhD] Locus [praise for Fred Nadis

"Insightful and exemplary. Significant as well as intriguing."

PhD] The Washington Post [praise for Fred Nadis

Well-written and entertaining. Invaluable insights into the science fiction world.

Locus [praise for Fred Nadis

Insightful and exemplary. Significant as well as intriguing.

The Washington Post [praise for Fred Nadis

Makes a lasting imprint. Entertaining.

The Wall Street Journal [praise for Fred Nadis

2020-04-28
Scientific and philosophical testimony on the possibilities of interstellar relocation.

In his third book, Nadis merges space science and technology in an intermittently fascinating exploration of the human quest to mine extraterrestrial lands for habitation. Admittedly “slow to warm to science fiction,” the author eventually came to appreciate the genre’s creative exploration of new worlds and how real-life space programs expound on those same ideas to make them a reality. Nadis discusses the increasing relevancy of human spaceflight and entertainingly details how the possibilities of space travel moved from the conceptions of astronomer Camille Flammarion, German aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, and author H.G. Wells into the contemporary landscape, in which some believe in the possibility of terraforming Mars. Nadis smoothly weaves in the progressive history of artificial biospheres and space colonization. However impressive these details may read and despite ambitious modern technological advances, however, experts report the effort of “rejuvenating a dead planet and creating of it a new Earth” will remain an enormously costly and risky project fraught with unseen complications. Leading the way in the space tourism business is billionaire Elon Musk, a spaceflight visionary whom Nadis spotlights prominently for his aggressive pursuit of Mars colonization. The author shows how initiatives like his SpaceX international rocket, along with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin program and smaller-scaled NASA programs, are collectively remapping the future possibilities of space travel. Noting the ever evolving social acceptance of interplanetary spaceflight, Nadis stresses that what was once considered “fringe thought” has now become a cosmic race very much in the mainstream. Citing journals, exhibits, academic texts, and interviews with space innovators and other experts, the author provides a solid, sometimes wondrous introduction to a field that is just beginning to show signs of promise.

A futuristic, optimistic, and intellectually stimulating report for space enthusiasts or readers with celestial wanderlust. (16 pages of color photos)

Kirkus Reviews