* Introduction: The End is Near? * Humanity Awakening to Space * A Pocket Guide to the Moon * Castles Build of Moondust * Asteroids and Comets in Our Backyard * The Best Things Come in Small Packages * Catching a Ride in Space * Power from the Sun, the Moon, and Asteroids * Mars in Imagination and Reality * Homesteading Mars * Phobos and Deimos * The Asteroid Belt: Treasure Beyond Count * The Outer Planets: Power Beyond Measure * Environmental Solutions for Earth * Civilization in Space * Afterword
John S. Lewis, author of Rain of Iron and Ice, is professor of planetary sciences and codirector of the Space Engineering Research centre at the University of Arizona-Tucson. He has chaired international conferences on space resources and is a globally recognized expert on the subject.
As we near the end of the 20th century, humankind must deal with the energy crisis and the depletion of natural resources. Lewis (Rain of Iron and Ice, LJ 1/96) argues that the solution to both these problems lies beyond the earth-that we can tap the vast resources of the solar system, in particular the asteroids, as a source of materials and the sun as a source of power. He even describes how we could colonize Mars. Introducing each chapter with a science fiction-type prolog, Lewis goes on to tell how all this can be achieved. Through occasionally tedious passages, he argues that his proposals are both technologically and economically feasible if done by private enterprise, not as a government project. For general collections. [Robert M. Zubrin's The Case for Mars, reviewed below, also proposes an economically feasible manned Mars program.-Ed.]-Harold D. Shane, Baruch Coll., CUNY
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