A00294 - Books of the Month for the Month of June 2024: A City on Mars: Contents

I have about 40 pages left to read for my June 2024 co-book of the month, A City on Mars.  In lieu of highlighting specific comments today, I shall simply share the Table of Contents for the book.  If you read this Table of Contents, you will see that there are many major biological, psychological, legal and political issues that we have not even begun to adequately address with regards to Space Exploration.  For those who like to gaze at the stars and dream of other worlds, this book provides a nice slap to face.  Ultimately, the message may be: Wake Up! And begin take better care of the only Real World that You've Got! 

*****

Introduction: A Homesteader's Guide to the Red Planet?

1. A Preamble on Space Myths

Part I - Caring for the Spacefaring

2. Suffocation, Bone Loss, and Flying Pigs: The Science of Space Physiology

3. Space Sex and Consequences Thereof

4. Spacefarer Psychology: In Which the Only Thing We're Sure of Is That Astronauts Are Liars

Nota Bene: Rocketry Goes to the Movies, or, Space Capitalism in Days of Yore, Part 1

Part II - Spome, Spome on the Range: Where Will Humans Live Off-World?

5. The Moon: Great Location, Bit of a Fixer-Upper

6. Mars: Landscapes of Poison and Toxic Skies, but What an Opportunity!

7. Giant Rotating Space Wheels: Not Literally the Worst Option

8. Worse Options

Nota Bene: Space is the Place for Product Placement, or Space Capitalism in Days of Yore, Part 2

Part III - Pocket Edens: How to Create a Human Terrarium That Isn't All That Terrible

9.  Outputs and Inputs: Poop, Food, and "Closing the Loop"

10. There's No Place Like Spome: How to Build Outer-Space Habitats

Nota Bene: The Mystery of the Tampon Bandolier

Part IV: Space Law for Space Settlements: Weird, Vague, and Hard to Change

11. A Cynical History of Space

12. The Outer Space Treaty: Great for Regulating Space Sixty Years Ago

13. Murder in Space: Who Killed the Moon Agreement?

Nota Bene: Space Cannabalism from a Legal and Culinary Perspective 

Part V - The Paths Forward: Bound fro Moonsylvania?

14. Commonsing the Cosmos

15. Dividing the Sky

16. The Birth of Space-States: Like the Birth of Space Babies, but Messier

Nota Bene: Violence in Antarctica, or, Happy Endings to Stabby Starts

Part Vi - To Plan B or Not to Plan Be: Space Society, Expansion, and Existential Risk

17. There's No Labor Pool on Mars: Outer Space as a Company Town

18. How Big is Big? Plan B Settlements Without Genetic or Economic Calamities

19. Space Politices by Other Means: On the Possibility of Space War

20. A Brief Coda on a Rarely Considered Alternative Wait-and-Go-Nowhere

Nota Bene: Amusing Astronaut Names and the Soviet Tendency to Fuss Over Weird Details

Conclusion: Of Hot Tubs and Human Destiny

*****

Soon will come my final post on this book.  However, suffice it to say that these days I prefer to journey to inner space rather than outer space.  The view is just as grand and a lot less problematic.

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins
Fairfield, California
July 13, 2024

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