The Critics: ‘The Hazards of Space Travel’
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 05.29.07 | 8:25 PM ET
Believe it or not, space travel can be hazardous. Just how hazardous? Consider this: “Space is littered with lithic debris, and a collision with a particle no bigger than a pebble could well be catastrophic.” That’s one of the many reasons you won’t find me strapped in on an upcoming flight. But I digress. A new book, The Hazards of Space Travel: A Tourist’s Guide, by astrophysicist Neil F. Comins, illuminates the many varied ways one could die in space.
Critic Richard B. Woodridge, who wrote that line about “lithic debris,” reviewed the book in Sunday’s New York Times.
He liked it, describing it as “an original and sobering book—part fictional spaceship log, part nuts-and-bolts survival manual.” The book, he notes, “warns of mundane dangers out there to mind and body far more serious than power-mad Klingons or homicidal computers.”
Perhaps it’s appropriate, then, that there’s already talk about how the nascent space tourism industry would fare after a rocket accident.
Related on World Hum:
* ‘Our Consultants Are Now Very Excited About Selling Space Travel’
* Singapore, United Arab Emirates Jump Into Space Tourism Race
* Neil Armstrong and the Promise of Space Travel
Email to friend
Twitter
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz
Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
Gas 05.30.07 | 6:57 AM ET
Space is hazardous because near Earth there is radiation belt. We can’t travel below it