Posted on Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Living Among Giants: Exploring and Settling the Outer Solar System by Michael Carroll
Michael
Carroll’s „Living Among Giants“ Explorer
the other solar system from the perspective of it being a potential destination
for manned missions, colonization and as a vacation destination in the future.
The book is
divided into three parts, all of which are excellently illustrated.
The first
part of the book looks at the solar system in general, how the planets formed,
and the space missions that have sent us back data about the other solar system
from the Pioneer spacecrafts to Cassini and a few possible missions that are
still in the future.
In the
second part of the book we have a much closer look at the giant planets, what
distinguishes them from one another and about the discovery of their moons and
different aspects of them. Naturally more attention is on the larger moons,
such as the four Galilean moons, the fascinating Titan and Triton. The overview
gives the moons more of a character so you can see that they’ve all got
something interesting an special about them.
The final
part of the book looks at how we might get there – what kind of technology is
necessary, and what kind of options do we already have for sending spacecrafts
there – so you can get a quick overview of different propulsion systems that
might for example eventually take the first manned mission to Titan.
Living
Among Giants is a fascinating book with excellent detours into what some
planetary scientists would like to visit on different moons – what views would
be the coolest? What sort of cruise to take to have the best views of Saturn’s
rings, or what kind of crater, chasm, cryovolcano or any other feature would be
interesting to explore.
Labels: book review, books, giant planets, Living Among Giants, Michael Carroll