robert zubrin - the case for mars

i had been planning to read this book for quite a while, when i finally got my hands on it last month. so, many thanks to pali for lending me his copy. the book is a work of non-fiction by robert zubrin, a former aeronautical engineer from martin corporation (today lockheed-martin) and presents the “mars direct” proposal, developed in the 90s, as a possible route to human exploration of mars (this takes up the bulk of the book), as well as the possibility of a permanent manned outpost and eventually the terraforming of the red planet.

the book is written with the layman in mind and every technical term or concept is thoroughly explained. the author challenges many of the assumptions associated with a piloted mars mission even today, such as the need for extensive infrastructure in low earth orbit (fuel depots, space stations, assembly plants) or the need for new propulsion technologies like nuclear-thermal or electric (zubrin proposes the use of existing chemical rockets). most nasa mars mission proposals advocate a short 30- to 60-day stay on the martian surface followed by a long journey back, possibly with a venus fly-by (400+ days); conversely, the “mars direct” plan calls for a 500-day-long surface stay (until the planets line up again for a favorable launch window) and a 200+ day journey back to earth (the reasoning being that the astronauts only spend half as much time in space and are safer and much more productive on the martian surface). the entire “mars direct” proposal hinges on a concept called “in-situ resource utilisation”, which in broad terms means using local resources, for example the abundant CO2 in the martian atmosphere can be combined with hydrogen to produce methane (that’s rocket fuel) and water (and the reaction is even exothermic). the later chapters of the book propose possibilities for permanent mars outposts, outline local resources and industries that might arise and tackle the problem of terraforming mars; one chapter presents some interesting ideas for possible martian timekeeping and calendar systems. 

where the book breaks down, for me, is when the author is trying to give reasons for the necessity of human presence on mars and the best he can come up with is wholeheartedly embracing jackson turner’s very flawed and  narrow-minded “frontier thesis” (i suppose it shows that he’s a rocket scientist, not a sociologist). in a nutshell, it posits that the defining factor that shaped modern america was the western frontier and without it modern ideals of democracy, individual liberty and religious freedom would not exist. furthermore, argues zubrin, a wild west-like frontier is necessary to maintain the spirit and identity of the american people.

if the subject of mars missions, or space exploration in general, interests you, then you should definitely check out this book. alternatively, if you don’t have time to read or can’t get a hold of it, just search for “a case for mars” on youtube and there is an hour-long presentation by zubrin himself.

robert forward - dragon's egg

i had finished this novel before going on holidays to romania, but i just couldn’t get around to writing a review at that time. this hard science fiction novel was published in the 80s and is now considered a classic (though perhaps not as popular as clarke’s or asimov’s works).

the story revolves around the accidental discovery of an intelligent alien species living on the surface of a neutron star, with a surface gravity of 67 billion g! as is the case with many hard sci-fi stories of this type, the human characters aren’t very well developed and take a backseat to the aliens and their environment. the author gives a plausible account of what life forms in such a place might look like, with the aliens, called “cheela”, having squashed, flexible bodies, roughly the size of a sesame seed with eyes that see in the ultraviolet and can perceive soft x-rays. even locomotion on the surface of the star is different from what we are used to here on earth, as traveling along the magnetic field lines (towards a pole) is easier than across the field lines. the cheela also perceive time differently, with one day, that is a revolution of the neutron star, taking about 0.2 seconds and the entire technological development of their civilization, from the invention of agriculture to gravity manipulation and spaceflight, happening in roughly one earth month. all these aspects, and many others, make the interaction between the humans and the cheela very interesting (even the method of mitigating the tidal forces to approach the neutron star is quite innovative).

robert forward was a physicist and he wrote his doctoral thesis on the detection of gravitational waves (though he later had a career as an aerospace engineer), so the science pertaining to the neutron star is spot-on (at least for the 80s). the history of how this novel came to exist is also interesting: forward agreed to write it together with larry niven, but the latter got involved in co-authoring another novel, “lucifer’s hammer” with jerry pournelle. so forward penned the novel himself and it took two rewrites before a publisher bought it.

in conclusion, if you enjoy smartly written hard sci-fi, with a bit of an old school feel, then i can recommend this novel to you. if you had enjoyed hal clement’s “mission of gravity” or robert forward’s “rocheworld”, you would probably like this one as well; if you had not read any of these, you might as well start with this one :) .

stiennon et al. - the rocket company

this novel is classed as science fiction, but i am more inclined to call it non-fiction. the authors are an aerospace engineer (patrick stiennon) and an aerospace consultant (david hoerr), and they have patented some of the elements of the spaceship presented in the novel.

the plot revolves around a group of seven million/billionaires (only one of whom is even given a name),  who wish to go into business in space launch services. from there on it reads more like a technical paper and a business proposal than a novel; there are long stretches where one character, usually an aerospace engineer, monologues about some aspect of spacecraft design. there is no characterization almost at all and the characters merely serve as mouthpieces for the authors. in my opinion the novel format doesn’t work too well and i would rather this was a series of essays, and at least references and sources could have been included. i also believe that the type of people who will read this novel, would have enjoyed a series of essays just as much (but I suppose a novel is more marketable).

since the book basically presents the design of a space launch system from  the ground up, there are plenty of juicy technical details, for example: what should be the liquid oxygen tank be made of? aluminium isogrid structure, cold-rolled high-strength steel or some composites (followed by  a description of the pros and cons of each approach as well as the history of how each of these materials was developed and used in the past).  beside the technical details, of which there are plenty, the novel addresses production, marketing and legal issues as well. Let me just illustrate what i mean by quoting the beginning of chapter 13 (page 113):

"[...] i have been wondering why you didn't specify kerosene instead of methane - kerosene seems to be the hydrocarbon fuel of choice for everybody else". tom responded, "those are good questions, and they deserve good answers. you know, i think you could use some historical context - the story of rocket propellant development is rather fascinating - and understanding it is important to what we are doing here. in fact, why don't we go talk to peter down in the propellant chemistry section?"

and this is followed by a chapter-long discussion of various rocket fuels, their history, availability and cost.

one serious beef that i had with the novel is the use of imperial units instead of metric. i realize this is for the benefit of the american audience, but most modern astronautics books and college or university classes that I own use either metric units or both.

i own the paperback version and it features gorgeous line drawings by doug birkholz (industrial designer).

i really enjoyed this novel, but i would not recommend it for everybody; you have probably figured out already from this description whether you are interested or not.

andy weir - the martian

another sci-fi debut novel that hits the mark. if you've enjoyed the 1995 movie apollo 13 and the tv series macguyver (and who hasn't?), then this book is definitely for you.

the story follows the exploits of a near-future astronaut stranded on mars who has to devise ways to survive for 4 years(!) until the next martian landing that may rescue him, more than 3000km away from his present location. i had compared the book to the movie apollo 13 because it really felt like reading an extra long book version of it. the novel is supposed to be the diary our astronaut writes in hopes of it being found even if he dies on the surface of mars. while he does use some technical jargon, he always follows up with explanations and plenty of witty humor for the layperson who might read his diary if it is published after his return to earth or demise on mars (and these parts really felt like an advanced macguyver who explains his set-up without shying away from also giving numbers and doing back-of-the-envelope calculations). and just like with macguyver, you learn a lot of interesting tidbits about martian timekeeping, weather systems, geography and geology in-situ resource utilization and, of course, rocket launches and orbital mechanics. a bit of familiarity with the real-world nasa history is perhaps required as the protagonist sometimes refers to historical events without giving the context, for example he happily notes that the carbon dioxide filters of the habitat and the rover are compatible, noting that apollo 13 was a good lesson.

also very interesting is the story of how this novel came to be. the author could not find a publisher interested in the novel and made it freely available on his website; later, at the urging of fans who wanted the convenience of an e-reader, he published the book for kindle on amazon, priced at 99 cents (the minimum that amazon allows). and it turned out to be an overnight success: now he has a proper publisher (and the e-book costs 12$), the book made the new york times bestseller list, there is an audio book and also sold the movie rights for a six-figure sum, not bad at all. the movie is to be directed by ridley scott, starring matt damon and promises to be awesome as long as they keep that lindelof hack away from the script.

comet chasing

last week has been quite eventful for people following space vehicle launches: first there was the maiden flight of the russian angara 1.2 (the member of a proposed modular launch system that could replace most russian space vehicles - they've been working on this since the 90s), then the flawless launch of a cygnus resupply craft for the iss on top of an antares rocket and, last monday, another successful falcon 9 launch and a soft landing of the first stage in the ocean (slowly paving the way for a truly reusable launch system).

so i had decided to post about an event here in vaasa from last may. to celebrate the rosetta spaceprobe's arrival in the vicinity of its target, comet 67p, after a 10-year-long journey, an exhibition-truck as been touring the nordic countries.

tibi + 1:4 scale replica of rosetta

the goal is to raise public awareness, educate the people and highlight the importance of this historic mission (the first soft landing on the surface of a comet) and of course the contributions of the nordic countries to this esa mission. i myself have visited the truck together with some highschoolers and their physics teacher. the truck contained 1:4 scale replicas of the rosetta probe and the smaller lander, philae as well as digital presentations of the launch and the long and exciting journey, fliers and various promotional materials and a friendly staff ready to answer your questions.

if you are interested in reading more about the mission (and you should be), visit the official website. it is particularly interesting to read about the scientific payload carried by the probe & lander. among many other things, rosetta has an atomic force microscope for characterizing dust particles in the comet's tail, with a spatial resolution of 4nm. another interesting experiment, named consert (comet nucleus sounding experiment by radiowave transmission), involves the lander on the surface and the orbiting probe sending radio waves back and forth to each other through the comet to gain information about the inner structure. it is really interesting, check out the website!

rosetta hits the road

anthony williams - the foresight war

an alternate ww2 novel with a very particular flavor.  the author is a military technology historian and the novel focuses a great deal on the technological improvements of various weapon systems during the war. as with most alternate history novels, this book is more enjoyable if the reader is somewhat familiar with the real-world timeline and events. 

ww2 is perhaps the most frequent setting for alternate history, present in every medium:  we’ve seen/read guided missile destroyers (anime/manga - "zipang"), aircraft carriers (film - "the final countdown"), whole fleets (novels - "axis of time") or just a single person (twilight zone – "time out") travel to the past. in this novel, the time traveler, called a “throwback”, has very little present day technology, only the things he carries with him habitually, but is an historian whose expertise is the technological developments, tactics and strategies of the second world war. wisely, the author doesn’t go into details about how the time travel is accomplished (it was probably alien space bats :p ).

the novel  follows the time traveler as he takes part in planning sessions or reviews news from the front lines, interspaced with chapters from the points of view of soldiers, both allied and axis, who use or come face to face with some of the weapons. i greatly enjoyed this set-up of alternating technical discussions and planning with riveting action scenes. my only regret is that the book seemed too short (it should have been at least twice as long).

all the developments are very plausible and are merely existing technologies that entered the war later or real world prototypes that were never pursued in our timeline (there is no future tech). the throwback is a historian, not an engineer/physicist/chemist, so he can state that centimetric radar was used to great effect in spotting submarines from planes, but he doesn’t know how to build a resonant cavity magnetron to enable this technology. the appendix of the book provides a list of all the weapons and technologies that are present in the novel along with the real-world counterparts. if this subject interests you, i can also recommend “rapid fire” by the same author; a history book documenting the development of automatic cannons and machine guns for the armies, navies and air forces of the world.

the prose is adequate and the characterization is forgettable, but neither is really the focus of the novel. i had enjoyed it a lot, but it is not everybody’s cup of tea. have you ever wondered how ww2 would have turned out had the royal air force focused less on strategic bombers and more on maritime escort planes, if the royal navy had concentrated more on aircraft carriers and fast ships instead of large caliber battleships or if britain had fortified malaya and singapore against the japanese attack? then this book is for you.

there is also a freely available sequel “foresight america”, by paul adkins written during the national novel writng month of 2006 (here all the big six nations britain, germany, soviet union, america, italy, japan get their own throwbacks), but the novel is somewhat unfinished.

james cambias - a darkling sea

the debut novel of james cambias and a pleasant surprise. it's a well-paced and well thought-out first contact story set in an interesting environment. the novel reminded me very much of classics such as hal clement’s "mission of gravity", where aliens and humans have to cooperate in a hostile (to us) environment and part of the narrative is from an alien’s point of view.

the setting is both alien and instantly recognizable:  a moon covered by a kilometers-thick sheet of ice with a vast ocean underneath, orbiting a gas giant. but instead of orbiting our own jupiter, this moon, named ilmatar, orbits a gas giant of the star gliesse 745-b, in the constellation sagitta. ilmatar is the name of an air spirit in finnish mythology, and while the english-speaking  characters in the novel refer to the inhabitants as ilmatarans, the author notes that finnish, scandinavian and german speakers call them ilmatarainen (the correct finnish name for a person from ilmatar).

the novel scores quite high on the sci-fi hardness scale: apart from a form of faster-than-light travel which is only there to allow travel to the setting, most of the gadgets are plausible extrapolations of existing technology. also, the wetsuits, moon pool and submersibles were a quite welcome change from the traditional eva suits, airlocks and rovers and reminded me a lot of james cameron's "the abyss". this is no space opera, though; there is no universal translator and communicating with aliens is not at all trivial. the aliens are interesting and well designed. their behavior and social structures flow from their evolutionary past in their environments and feel very natural; again, much like the aforementioned "mission of gravity".

the story is instantly gripping, moves at a good pace and at the end of the novel leaves you wanting more. the alien characters are interesting and, while physiologically different, have very human-like thought processes. i suppose we all wish to read about protagonists whose reasoning we can comprehend, but what would a story look like narrated from the point of view of a truly alien being (eg:the scramblers from blindsight)?

ideologically the book is an examination of the famous prime directive, its validity and implications. i will not discuss it more because i wouldn’t want to give anything away, but let me just state that i, personally, have always disagreed with starfleet on this matter (you can let me know in the comments how do you feel about it). if you dig a bit deeper, the novel also offers a commentary on more contemporary politics and attitudes, but it is very subtle and non-intrusive (please take note, mr baxter).

i can wholeheartedly recommend this book to any sci-fi fan looking for a fast-paced, intelligent story reminiscent of the classics.