Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities
A Collection of Space Futures
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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Publisher Description
Why should we go to space? To learn more about the universe and our place in it? To extract resources and conduct commerce? To demonstrate national primacy and technological prowess? To live and thrive in radically different kinds of human communities? Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities takes on the challenge of imagining new stories at the intersection of public and private—narratives that use the economic and social history of exploration, as well as current technical and scientific research, to inform scenarios for the future of the “new space” era.
Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities provides fresh insights into human activity in Low Earth Orbit, journeys to Mars, capturing and mining asteroids, and exploring strange and uncharted exoplanets. Its stories and essays imagine human expansion into space as a kind of domestication—not in the sense of taming nature but in the sense of creating a space for dwelling, a venue for human life and curiosity to unfurl in all their weirdness and complexity.
Features stories by Madeline Ashby, Steven Barnes, Eileen Gunn, Ramez Naam, Carter Scholz, Karl Schroeder, and Vandana Singh, and an interview with renowned science fiction novelist Kim Stanley Robinson.
Customer Reviews
Collection of Essays and Stories about Why We Should go to Space
“Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities” is a project by the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University and NASA. It is a collection of science fiction stories and related essays edited by Ed Finn & Joey Eschrich. These works examine the near-future of three areas: Low Earth Orbit, Mars, Asteroids, and Exoplanets.
This is a serious examination of many aspects of these topics, and the essays are well referenced. These include an interview with science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson. Short excerpts from Mr. Robinson’s “Red Mars” also are featured as introductions.
One area that really stands out in this collection is the amazing artwork by Maciej Rebisz. This begins on the cover, which appropriately depicts a space station in Earth orbit, with commercial Skylon-type space planes coming into dock. Each of the science fiction stories has its own unique and excellent illustration.
This collection is both though provoking and interesting, and tends toward the positive. It’s also a free download, so there is no reason not to try it out.