Space Travel, Extraterrestrial Life, SETI

Last update: 30 Mar 2026 19:33
First version: Before 13 March 1995

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Someday we'll walk on Venus
Someday we'll walk on Mars

See also:
• Astrophysics and Cosmology
• The Cold War
• Titan

Recommended (obviously, a tiny selection):
• Nick Abadzis, Laika [Historical fiction, but well-researched. Micro-review.]
• Maciej Ceglowski, "Why Not Mars", Idle Words, 1 January 2023
• Milan M. Cirkovic, "Too Early? On the Apparent Conflict of Astrobiology and Cosmology", astro-ph/0505006 = Biology and Philosohpy 21 (2006): 369--379
• Freeman Dyson, Infinite in All Directions
• Sarah Stewart Johnson, The Sirens of Mars: Searching for Life on Another World
• Leonard A. McGee and Stanley F. Schmidt, "Discovery of the Kalman Filter as a Practical Tool for Aerospace and Industry", NASA Technical Memorandum 86847 (1985) [How we learned to aim for the stars and/or hit London. Free PDF.]
• Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Modesty forbids me to recommend:
• CRS, Import Substitution Is a Harsh Mistress

To read, history, general:
• George Basalla, Mirror Worlds: Scientific Perceptions of Extraterrestrial Civilizations
• Donald A. Beattie, Taking Science to the Moon: Lunar Experiments and the Apollo Program
• Matthew Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age
• Serge Brunier, Space Odyssey: The First Forty Years of Space Exploration
• Burrows, This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age
• Deborah Cadbury, Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space
• Dale Carter, The Final Frontier: The Rise and Fall of the American Rocket State
• David H. DeVorkin, From the Laboratory to the Moon: The Quiet Genius of George R. Carruthers
• Steven J. Dick
  • The Biological Universe: The Twentieth Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science
  • Life on Other Worlds: The 20th Century Extraterrestrial Life debate [Review by Danny Yee]
• George Dyson, Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship [Or, "What did you do during the Cold War, Daddy?"]
• Karl S. Guthke, The Last Frontier: Imagining Other Worlds, from the Copernican Revolution to Modern Science Fiction
• James Harford, Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon
• Stephen B. Johnson, The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs
• Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles, Almost Heaven: The Story of Women in Space
• Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, Lost Moon [Review at Special Circumstances. "The story is not about heroism or miracles but rather about training, design and expertise which surprisingly turns out to be much more interesting."]
• Howard E. McCurdy
  • Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program
  • Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program
  • Space and the American Imagination
  • The Space Station Decision: Incremental Politics and Technological Choice
• McDougall, ...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age [A great book I need to finish...]
• Fred Scharmen, Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space
• Matthew Shindell, For the Love of Mars: A Human History of the Red Planet
• Seth Shostak and Alexandra Barnett, Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe
• Asif A. Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge

To read, historical interest:
• Arthur Clarke, The Exploration of Space

To read, history and science-and-technology-studies of robotic space exploration:
• William J. Clancey, Working on Mars: Voyages of Scientific Discovery with the Mars Exploration Rovers
• Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees, The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration [The thesis is obviously correct, though crushingly un-romantic...]
• Chris Impey and Holly Henry, Dreams of Other Worlds: The Amazing Story of Unmanned Space Exploration
• K. Maria D. Lane, Geographies of Mars: Seeing and Knowing the Red Planet
• Roger D. Launius and Howard E. McCurdy, Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel
• Zara Mirmalek, Making Time on Mars
• Janet Vertesi
  • "Seeing like a Rover: Visualization, embodiment, and interaction on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission", Social Studies of Science 42 (2012): 393--414
  • Seeing Like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars

To read, not otherwise, or not yet, classified:
• Marina Benjamin, Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond
• Joan Lisa Bromberg, NASA and the Space Industry
• Milan M. Cirkovic
  • "The Anthropic Principle and the Duration of the Cosmological Past", astro-ph/0505005
  • and Robert J. Bradbury, "Galactic Gradients, Postbiological Evolution and the Apparent Failure of SETI", astro-ph/0506110
• Giancarlo Genta and Michael J. Rycroft, Space, the Final Frontier?
• David Grinspoon, Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life
• Gretchen Heefner, Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How US Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments
• Chris Impey, Worlds Without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity
• Ray Jayawardhana, Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life beyond Our Solar System
• Iina Kohonen, Picturing the Cosmos: A Visual History of Early Soviet Space Endeavor
• David Lamb, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: A Philosophical Inquiry
• Lavey, Late for the Sky: Mentality of the Space Age
• Mario Livi et al. (eds.), Astrophysics of Life
• Ralph D. Lorenz, Exploring Planetary Climate: A History of Scientific Discovery on Earth, Mars, Venus and Titan
• W. Patrick McCray
  • The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future
  • Keep Watching the Skies! The Story of Operation Moonwatch and the Dawn of the Space Age
• John E. Moores, Jesse Rogerson, Michelle D. Parsons, Daydreaming in the Solar System: Surfing Saturn's Rings, Golfing on the Moon, and Other Adventures in Space Exploration
• Gonzalo Munévar, The Dimming of Starlight: The Philosophy of Space Exploration
• Paul Musgrave and Daniel H. Nexon, "Defending Hierarchy from the Moon to the Indian Ocean: Symbolic Capital and Political Dominance in Early Modern China and the Cold War", International Organization 72 (2018): 591--626
• National Research Council, Pathways to Exploration: Rationales and Approaches for a U.S. Program of Human Space Exploration
• Erika Nesold, Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandries for Living in Outer Space
• Michael Neufeld, Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War
• Ed Regis, Starbound: Interstellar Travel and the Limits of the Possible
• Liam Sarsfield, The Cosmos on a Shoestring: Small Spacecraft for Space and Earth Science
• Scott Solomon, Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds
• David A. Weintraub, Life on Mars: What to Know Before We Go