cover image Space 2000: Meeting the Challenge of a New Era

Space 2000: Meeting the Challenge of a New Era

Harry L. Shipman. Plenum Publishing Corporation, $21.95 (431pp) ISBN 978-0-306-42534-9

In a hearty volume documented in depth, Shipman (The Restless Universe, etc.) offers a compendious examination of space ventures we can look forward to in spite of the disaster that befell the Challenger. A NASA consultant, he presents virtually an insider's view of the current plightof the U.S. space programworldwide competition, low moraleto explain what may lie ahead if we can meet the stupendous costs. He is exciting if not totally groundbreaking in projecting possible-to-probable explorations of the near and distant cosmospractical stuff here, not theoryalong with a new ""earth science'' practiced from orbiters; an industrial era set up by experiments with materials in ``microgravity''; and, ultimately, the first attempts at a colony on Mars once permanent space stations are developed to meet the physical and psychological needs of humans. A bravo overview. (June 5)