Entering Space
by Robert Zubrin · first published 1999
8mentions
3recommended by
6HN commenters
2009–2026first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
" ... Visionary yet practical blueprint of how we can settle new planets and reach new stars."--Jacket.
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…about this, then you have a perhaps a bit of homework to do before posting questions about space to a social news site that prides itself on informed, intelligent discussion. Perhaps start with Zubrin's _Entering Space_. Any number of books about the space program will do as well.
on “Any way to "hack" the Google Lunar X Prize?” ↗For energy, you might want to check out Entering Space by Zubrin, who works through the many options for interstellar travel. One very energy-efficient approach is light sails.. our Sun will definitely keep shining for more than 20,000 years. The other…
on “Galactic settlement of low-mass stars as a resolution to the Fermi paradox” ↗…technology we need for a spacefaring society, and probably have had it for some decades. Our economy is stuck in a local maximum, where there is no short-term economic benefit to going there. Read Zubrin's _Entering Space_ for details. http://www.amazon.com/Entering-Space-Creating-Spacefaring-Ci... For example, the original Orion project had a means of traveling to Saturn in a year. (Using nuclear bombs to power a spacecraft.)…
on “Ask HN: Stark Trek - How far are we?” ↗…Lockheed and had to watch his inventions shelved because they would have undercut the costs of the existing launch technology, which prompted him to quit and start his own company. (See his outstanding book "Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization".)
on “Is SpaceX changing the rocket equation?” ↗…to make some propellants, but not much else. As a refueling station, it could be a good idea. But for anything other than fuel, the Moon doesn't really work out as you have to lift it from LEO first. Entering Space by Robert Zubrin has more detailed technical arguments about this.
on “Why the SpaceX landing is Better than Apollo 11” ↗In Zubrin's book Entering Space he says in general you should use the radiation pressure of the destination star or the solar wind to decelerate, and I believe published the work to demonstrate its feasibility.
on “The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program” ↗Zubrin, in Entering Space, introduced me to the idea of using a solar or much larger magnetic sail to drag against the outcoming solar wind of the destination star. So that's one way to spend no energy slowing down for interstellar…
on “NASA Funded Scientists Claim Breakthrough in Propellantless Propulsion” ↗In his 1999 book "Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization", Robert Zubrin mentioned checking the math for Bussard ramjets with Dana Andrews in their 1988 join paper "Magnetic Sails and Interstellar Travel" and found that…
on “Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life (2013)” ↗