'A Space Traveler鈥檚 Guide to the Solar System' leads readers into space
Armchair travelers bored with reading about French cuisine and Mediterranean cruises can book a fantasy flight on board the Kaldi.聽 First stop: the Moon.聽 And after that, places like Venus, Mercury, and even Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter.
It鈥檚 an audacious journey, but one with experiential rewards far beyond lunching on quiche in Paris. The Kaldi, for example, will do a perilous loop around the Sun, our beyond-brilliant orb that could easily bake the spaceship to ashes. 聽From there, it鈥檚 on to Mars.
鈥淢ars is a great place for a short excursion to the surface,鈥� we learn.聽鈥淚t feels like you鈥檙e in the middle of a vast red desert.... The surface is not too dissimilar to the Moon鈥檚 with a powdery coating almost the consistency of talcum powder....鈥澛�
Meanwhile, there鈥檚 no need to stew over how much to tip the waiter: on board the Kaldi is 鈥渁 fully functioning computerized hydroponics nursery ... [providing] a range of fruit, vegetables and herbs....鈥澛�
The Kaldi and the journey it offers are the creation of Mark Thompson, a space aficionado and writer who brings his enthusiasm for astronomy to various programs on British television. 聽
His book title 鈥� A Space Traveler鈥檚 Guide to the Solar System 鈥� must be a nod to Douglas Adams鈥檚 similarly titled series of galactic adventures.聽 But rather than use wacky humor to enable the journey, Mr. Thompson employs current science, along with today鈥檚 rapidly expanding knowledge of our solar system, to enable us to visit places no one has gone before.
Thompson comments: 鈥淐learly interplanetary space travel is not for the faint-hearted, but to be able to see the beautiful and enigmatic Saturn, the jewel of the Solar System, at first hand is going to make it all worthwhile.鈥澛�
Of course there鈥檚 an extraordinary amount to learn before traveling from the Sun through to interstellar space is possible.聽 (One problem: this excursion would require the traveler to take more than 42 years off from work.)聽 Where current science doesn鈥檛 offer even speculative solutions to the challenges of this journey, Thompson employs what he calls a Reality Suspension Unit.
The RSU allows us, for example, to visit the inhospitable surface of Venus, where 鈥渃rushing pressures鈥� and 鈥渆xtreme heat鈥� would otherwise have prevented us from enjoying its dark surface 鈥渟culpted by volcanic activity.鈥澛�
Meanwhile, there are places even the RSU can鈥檛 enable us to hop off to experience, like the gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Even flying the Kaldi itself into the gas clouds of Jupiter is impossible because atmospheric pressure and heat would 鈥渕ean an end to the mission.鈥� However you can fly close enough to view 鈥渢he stunning detail in the upper atmosphere of the planet.鈥澛�
There are similarities between "A Space Traveler鈥檚 Guide" and a really long road trip during which each stop offers unique new sites to see 鈥� and unique challenges.聽 But along this journey, you learn a lot about science, and about the nature of the universe.
Here鈥檚 a tidbit about Jupiter, 鈥渄ubbed the 鈥榗osmic hoover.鈥欌�澛� 鈥淚ts sheer presence attracts many asteroids and comets towards it, keeping us a little safer.聽 Estimates suggest that Jupiter experiences around 5,000 more impacts per year than Earth.鈥澛�
The science Thompson shares may require a few orbits to absorb for those who aren鈥檛 rocket scientists.聽 But I recommend giving even the highly technical material a go, knowing that before long Thompson will return to the business of getting us on to our next stellar stop.
There鈥檚 also a lot of history here; Thompson nicely shares everything from the telescopic discoveries of great bearded astronomers like Galileo to the adventures and misadventures of recent unmanned space missions.
It鈥檚 a very worthwhile journey through our colorful and quirky solar system.聽 And Thompson is a thorough and reliable guide, whose deep knowledge makes you confident in the accuracy of his descriptions.聽
My quibble is that there aren鈥檛 enough scenic descriptions.聽 There are missed opportunities when Thompson could have loosened his space helmet and used his understanding to better help us imagine these places. If I鈥檝e traveled 4.3 billion kilometers to fly by Neptune, I want to return with some really good snapshots!
Nonetheless, "Space Traveler鈥檚 Guide" brilliantly leads readers into space.聽 It鈥檚 an astronomical travelogue that blasts us out of our little world, and shows us how, in a few decades, we could be cruising our solar system.聽 Cheese tasting on the moon, anyone?
