Interested in new space books, check out READING SPACE: NSS Reviews and Recommended Reading .
Recent Review include Space Enterprise by Philip Robert Harris reviewed by David Brandt-Erichsen, How to Live on Mars by Robert Zubrin reviewed by Brian Enke. Saturn for My Birthday by John McGranaghan reviewed by Marianne Dyson.
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Back in 1966, Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon. Apogee Books has provided an English-language NASA translation of a detailed report originally released by the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Meyer’s academic textbook is loaded with numerous photographs, diagrams, charts, and graphs. There are chapters on subjects such as farm machines, animal and fungi production, plant and algae production, and space menus. The farming techniques outlined in the book can be applied to lunar, Martian, or rotating space settlements.
Apogee Books has reissued its volume on Surveyor for the program’s 60th anniversary. The book is a wonder, containing a veritable treasure trove of documents on every conceivable facet of the Surveyor program.
We are at the cusp of building an orbital industrial infrastructure and establishing human settlements in space. This book investigates what it takes to do that.
By Burt Dicht NSS Space Coast Correspondent Image: Starship 13 after “landing” in the Indian Ocean. Last week I had the opportunity to speak to...
Today, on the 57th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing, this inspiring song commemorating the past and the future of our presence on the Moon...
The National Space Society (NSS) today announced that it is delivering a letter to Congress and the Administration addressing concerns and recommendations regarding NASA’s draft...
The National Space Society invites you to the next Space Forum Thursday, July 23, 2026, 8:00 pm to 9:15 pm EST Artemis II and Our...
1 thought on “NSS Book Reviews”
I propose a work for review and discussion here that I think is about as good a resource about space settlements as will be written for a few decades to come. I know of it because Zubrin mentions it. It is, Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History.
In Turner the future of space development and settlements is laid out plain to see. Since we haven’t any previous space settlements experience, Turner is practically a plan for how to go about it. Much of the good in Turner is that to apply it, you have to translate it from his 1890’s vocabulary, into the future. It’s a learning experience to do this. I especially liked Turner’s observation of progressive stages of settlement. It can serve as an antidote to the easy projection of future without detail, that certainly won’t go as we’d like it to.
So I think Turner is very much worth mentioning, here, and now.
Cheers — Martha Adams 2009 Mar 02