"I am completely awed, and I don't awe easily, by the
author's command of a dozen engineering disciplines and his amazing
knowledge of scientific and technical literature"
From the introduction to the 2nd edition by Arthur C. Clarke,
Sci-Fi Author ("2001: A Space Odyssey", "2010: Odyssey Two", "2061;
Odyssey Three", "3001: The Final Odyssey", "Rendezvous with Rama", etc.)
and inventor of the Geo-stationary Communications Satellite concept.
Read
Arthur
C. Clarke's preface to the second edition
This is a coherent plan to get humanity moving into the stars in the next
thousand years, and ... there is both vision and practical plan here.
Dr. Jerry Pournelle, Sci-Fi Author and regular columnist at
Byte Magazine
"Marshall T. Savage has a wonderful plan. Between the sea cities and the
Dyson shell are ideas both familiar and brilliantly original"
Larry Niven, Sci-Fi Author
"An important and eventually practical way to get all of our eggs
(literally) out of the single basket of this planet"
Hugh Downs, Author and Commentator
We live on a planet that cannot sustain us much longer. Across the globe
the twin problems of overpopulation and environmental destruction threaten
to make Earth uninhabitable. In this compelling book, pragmatic visionary
Marshall Savage contends that we must alter our galactic course and colonize
the stars in order to survive. He offers a fascinating and believable plan
for doing so.
Publisher's Synopsis from the rear cover of the book
"It is our destiny to colonize space", announces the author in the first
line of this fascinating book. And then he shows us how to go about that
seemingly impossible mission in eight (sort of easy) steps. For example,
Aquarius, the proposed second step, describes how building floating colonies
in tropical waters - using simple engineering and natural aqua culture to
reverse the greenhouse effect and end world hunger - will both halt the
decline of the planet and prepare us psychologically for the break with
Earth. Although the plan sounds far-fetched, Savage explains every detail,
from how to build the Ocean Thermal Energy Converters (OTEC) at the heart of
this scheme to why cultivating algae will provide an abundant protein source
and rid us of the dangerously high carbon monoxide levels that threaten life
on the planet. Savage not only transforms an enormously complicated plan
into compelling reading, he also makes appealing the prospect of our life in
space.
In this boldly optimistic manifesto, Savage proclaims a master plan for
the human race: to spread life throughout the galaxy. To many, space
exploration seems irrelevant to Earth's real problems; but humanity may in
fact have no other way to secure its long-term survival. To remain confined
to Earth, Savage claims, is to court extinction, possibly within a few
decades. Savage (an engineer who has established the Millennial Foundation
to promote space exploration) outlines his program for transferring a
significant portion of humanity off-planet. The crucial first step is to
colonize the ocean surface with floating cities, quadrupling the living
space available to the growing population of Earth. This allows us to
reverse the degradation of the environment by shifting to the thermal energy
of the deep ocean as our primary power source. At the same time, spirulina
algae (already on sale in health food stores) becomes a major new food crop.
The hardware for these oceanic colonies is already within practical reach:
Savage provides a detailed inventory of how his floating cities would work
and support themselves, with copious citations of the scientific literature.
Once this move is well underway, it frees up energy and resources for the
next steps. Improved space vehicles make possible orbiting space colonies,
then settlements on the moon. A larger step is terra-forming Mars--creating
an atmosphere and a water supply for our lifeless neighbor to form a human
habitat. On an even longer time scale, the race can expand into the rest of
the solar system: asteroids and the moons of other planets. Ultimately,
artificial habitats may completely surround the sun. With the resources of
an entire solar system at our command, according to Savage, humanity can at
last send out emissaries to other stars. The stuff of science fiction? Of
course--but rigorously built from existing science, carefully documented,
and convincingly argued. Highly recommended.
I
have just read a book that has shattered my previously defeatist view of
starvation, overpopulation and pollution. The book is titled:
"The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy
in Eight Easy Steps" by Marshall T. Savage and can be found
in the science section of most book stores or on the internet at
one of the web sites listed below.
