SEEING US SEEING THEM

Avi Loeb. Interstellar, the Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future Beyond Earth. John Murray Books, 2023.

This book is potentially a trailblazer and may be one of the first in a new genre. A book about aliens visiting Earth that is not written by a UFO enthusiast trying to investigate close encounters, but is very much a consideration of that subject through the actual evidence uncovered by astronomers and cosmologists.

🔽

PHONECALLS FROM SPACE

Joshua Winn. The Little Book of Exoplanets. Princeton University Press 2023.

In 1971 I took astronomy classes at Manchester University and one of my lecturers was Professor Zdenek Kopal. He was one of the first scientists in the then new age of space exploration trying to find ways to discover if any of the trillions of stars we know to exist had solar systems like our own and if any of those other suns had planets capable of supporting life like the Earth.

🔽

SPACE AGES

Roger D. Launius. The History of Space Exploration; Discoveries from the Ancient World to the Extraterrestrial Future, Thames and Hudson, 2018.

This takes us on an illustrated guide through the major milestones of space exploration, covering everything from the evolution of the rocket to the Space Age and the progression from simple artificial satellites to manned missions to the Moon and the possibilities of space tourism, going to Mars, space colonies and interstellar spacecraft.

🔻

SURVEYING THE NEW FRONTIER

Charles Wohlforth and Amanda R. Hendrix. Beyond Earth: Our Path to a New Home in the Planets. Pantheon Books, New York, 2016

Most scientific speculation about the possibility of establishing settlements on other planets usually involves the consideration of Mars as the most likely, but the authors have examined these ideas and have concluded that the proposed methods of making Mars habitable are not practicable and remark: "These are fun ideas to think about, but the time and cost are too colossal to take seriously."
🔻

OUT THERE

John W Traphagan. Science, Culture and the Search for Life on Other Worlds. Springer, 2016.

Apparently there is a strange star out there given the decidedly unromantic name of KIC8462852, the light of which unexpectedly dims every few weeks or months, which has led some people to suggest that its light is being intercepted by huge megastructures orbiting it, built by aliens.
🔻

TO INFINITY AND BEYOND?

Giovanni F. Bignami. The Mystery of the Seven Spheres: How Homo Sapiens Will Conquer Space. Springer, 2015.

Astronomer Giovanni Bignami has obviously written this book with the intention of providing information for young people who might be interested in pursuing a scientific career. He introduces his account of the progress of astronomy and space exploration, manned and unmanned, by telling his readers, in considerable detail, how he was influenced by the works of Jules Verne.
🔻

TAKING THE CONTROLS ON SPACESHIP EARTH

George M. Young. The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers. Oxford University Press, 2012.

For decades now we have been told that human beings are 'naked apes', that we are a small part of the natural world, an evolutionary dead-end, latecomers whose actions are threatening the balance of nature, and that our aim should be to minimise man's impact on the environment.
🔻

MOVING ON

Cameron M Smith and Evan T Davies. Emigrating Beyond Earth: Human Adaptation and Space Travel. Springer, 2012.

When I were now’t but a nipper 50 years ago, the factual children's magazines of the period such as Knowledge and Look and Learn used to feature dreams of the future, and the amazing world of 2000. This included colonies on the Moon and Mars, huge orbiting space stations, trips to the outer solar system and the like.
🔽