Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier

The Interstellar Age: The Story of the NASA Men and Women Who Flew the Forty-Year Voyager Mission

Jim Bell · 324 pages

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan · 429 pages

“Fascinating . . . memorable . . . revealing . . . perhaps the best of Carl Sagan’s books.”—The Washington Post Book World (front page review) In Cosmos, the late astronomer Carl Sagan cast his gaze over the magnificent mystery of the Universe and made it accessible to millions of people around the world. Now in this stunning sequel, Carl Sagan completes his revolutionary journey through space

The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must

Robert Zubrin · 348 pages

The Case for Mars is not a vision for the far future or one that will cost us impossible billions. It explains step-by-step how we can use present-day technology to send humans to Mars within ten years; actually produce fuel and oxygen on the planet's surface with Martian natural resources; how we can build bases and settlements; and how we can one day "terraform" Mars - a process that can alter t

Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective

Carl Sagan · 274 pages

I came across this while watching *Cosmos* by Neil deGrasse Tyson. This was the book given to him by the legend himself, Sagan. "This book is about science in its broadest human context, how science and civilization grew up together. It is the story of our long journey of discovery and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science, including Democritus, Hypatia, Kepler, Newton,

How We'll Live on Mars

Stephen L. Petranek · 77 pages

"It sounds like science fiction, but Stephen Petranek considers it fact: Within twenty years, humans will live on Mars. We'll need to. In this sweeping, provocative book that mixes business, science, and human reporting, Petranek makes the case that living on Mars is an essential back-up plan for humanity and explains in fascinating detail just how it will happen. The race is on. Private companies

Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer

Rob Manning · 232 pages

In Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer, Rob Manning, the project's chief engineer, tells of bringing the groundbreaking spacecraft to life. Manning and his team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tasked with designing a lander many times larger and more complex than any before, faced technical setbacks, fights over inadequate resources, and the challenges of l

Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration

Buzz Aldrin, Leonard David · 265 pages

Buzz Aldrin speaks out as a vital advocate for the continuing quest to push the boundaries of the universe as we know it. As a pioneering astronaut who first set foot on the moon during mankind's first landing of Apollo 11-- and as an aerospace engineer who designed an orbital rendezvous technique critical to future planetary landings -- Aldrin has a vision, and in this book he plots out the path

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

Randall Munroe · 312 pages

Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a

Five Billion Years of Solitude: The Search for Life Among the Stars

Lee Billings · 294 pages

How Space Physics Really Works

Andrew May · 156 pages

There is a huge gulf between the real physics of space travel and the way it is commonly portrayed in movies and TV shows. That’s not because space physics is difficult or obscure – most of the details were understood by the end of the 18th century – but because it can often be bafflingly counter-intuitive for a general audience. The purpose of this book isn’t to criticize or debunk popular sci-fi

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

Kelly Weinersmith · 448 pages

Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos

Michio Kaku · 428 pages

Is our universe dying? Could there be other universes?In Parallel Worlds, world-renowned physicist and bestselling author Michio Kaku--an author who "has a knack for bringing the most ethereal ideas down to earth" (Wall Street Journal)--takes readers on a fascinating tour of cosmology, M-theory, and its implications for the fate of the universe.In his first book of physics since Hyperspace, Michio

Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon

Craig Nelson · 404 pages

A richly detailed and dramatic account of one of the greatest achievements of humankindAt 9:32 A.M. on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 rocket launched in the presence of more than a million spectators who had gathered to witness a truly historic event. It carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins to the last frontier of human imagination: the moon.Rocket Men is the thrilling story of the

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

Mary Roach · 334 pages

Space is devoid of the stuff humans need to live: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh veg, privacy, beer. How much can a person give up? What happens when you can't walk for a year? Is sex any fun in zero gravity? As Mary Roach discovers, it's possible to explore space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a 17,000-mile-per-hour crash test of NASA's space capsule, she

Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon

Catherine Thimmesh · 80 pages

The Planets

Dava Sobel · 288 pages

The sun's family of planets become a familiar place in this personal account of the lives of other worlds. With her gift for weaving difficult scientific concepts into a compelling story, Sobel explores the planets' origins and oddities through the lens of popular culture, from astrology, mythology, and science fiction to art, music, poetry, biography, and history.--From publisher description.

The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report

Timothy Ferris · 396 pages

Human Universe

Brian Cox, Andrew Cohen · 272 pages

Professor Brian Cox takes readers out of this world and into a whole new dimension as he gives us a new perspective on human life. Following the spark of human curiosity from its ignition in the distant past to its journey into the future, the book spans the history of the universe, as Brian attempts to understand the greatest wonder of them all - humankind.

The Hunt for Vulcan: . . . And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe

Thomas Levenson · 226 pages

"The captivating, all-but-forgotten story of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and the search for a planet that never existed."--Amazon.com.

Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space

Janna Levin · 241 pages

"In 1916, Einstein became the first to predict the existence of gravitational waves: sounds without a material medium generated by the unfathomably energy-producing collision of black holes. Now, Janna Levin, herself an astrophysicist, recounts the story of the search, over the last fifty years, for these elusive waves--a quest that has culminated in the creation of the most expensive project ever

The Copernicus Complex: The Quest for Our Cosmic (In)Significance

Caleb Scharf · 278 pages

A groundbreaking revision of the Copernican Principle which is that the Earth was not the fixed point at the center of the known universe (and therefore we are not unique). Renowned astrophysicist and author Caleb Scharf argues that the principle has never been entirely true and therefore requires that we put aside our Copernican worldview and embrace the possibility that we are in a delicate bala

The Space Race

Deborah Cadbury

A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

Lawrence M. Krauss · 202 pages

"Internationally known theoretical physicist and bestselling author Lawrence Krauss offers provocative, revelatory answers to the most basic philosophical questions: Where did our universe come from? Why is there something rather than nothing? And how is it all going to end? Why is there something rather than nothing?" is asked of anyone who says there is no God. Yet this is not so much a philosop

The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe

Stephen Hawking · 132 pages

A series of lectures by the renowned physicist reviews past ideas from Aristotle to Newton and Einstein's theories of gravity, the Big Bang, and black holes and explores quantum mechanics and the time and space proposition.