The Ultimate Interplanetary Travel Guide: A Futuristic Journey Through the Cosmos

by Jim Bell

“Like any good travel book, Jim Bell’s guide gives you some good advice on what to bring and what to wear. Of course, we don’t leave for a few hundred years. For now though, check out these images—the pictures alone will make you want to start packing!” —Bill Nye, CEO, The Planetary Society

Do you dream of traveling to other worlds? This visually spectacular book brings you closer to an interplanetary voyage than ever before!
 
Following in the footsteps of Jim Bell’s successful The Space Book, Mars 3-D, and Moon 3-D, this large-format volume offers space enthusiasts an unparalleled visual experience of our solar system. Featuring eight removable NASA posters highlighting the wonders of space, gorgeous full-color photography, and stunning art, Bell’s travel guide takes you on a futuristic tour of the solar system and beyond. Along the way, you’ll experience what it’s like to hike across lunar craters, soar through the winds of Venus, and raft down the rapids of Titan. Informative summaries of every destination are based on knowledge gleaned from more than 50 years of space exploration. The images provide a taste of the awe-inspiring destinations that we may one day reach, from the oceans of Europa to the newly discovered planets of TRAPPIST-1, while captions draw our attention to the unusual craters, ridges, seas, and storms captured by orbiting satellites, landers, and rovers.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Astronomy, Space

160 pages, Hardcover

Published April 3, 2018

About the author

James (Jim) F. Bell III (born July 23, 1965) is a Professor of Astronomy at Arizona State University, specializing in the study of planetary geology, geochemistry and mineralogy using data obtained from telescopes and from various spacecraft missions.
Dr. Bell's active research has involved the NASA Mars Pathfinder, Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR), 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Mars Science Laboratory missions. His book Postcards from Mars includes many images taken by the Mars rovers. Dr. Bell is currently an editor of the space science journal Icarus and president of The Planetary Society.
He has served as the lead scientist in charge of the Panoramic camera (Pancam) color imaging system on Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say that this is a rather curious book - it is as the title describes presented as a futuristic travel guide but backed up with as much as possible scientific observations and current thinking. Yes as always the case our understand is progressing all the time so rather like attempts that were written many years ago ( I can think of one written in the 70s for example) they seem rather naïve and dated at times .

However its books like this that get you thinking and even dreaming and it is those people who are inspired by such books that eventually make it happen.

On top of all of that the presentation and even the artwork (which was inspired off a genuine NASA project) is incredible. This is one of those books you want to spend time leafing through and I will admit I suspect I will be many more times to come

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun brain-candy ultimately undermined by its repetitiveness.

I bought this primarily for the artwork, and the retro-style poster art doesn't disappoint (though I wish there was more of it). The factoids on the various solar system destinations are solid enough, and the speculative fiction aspects are plausible, if vague ("advanced in propulsion technology ... like nuclear and solar sail").

Probably the biggest downside of the book is how repetitive it gets. Imagine reading a travel guide to Europe where the what-to-do sections were basically the same for every country. Granted, a lot of the objects in the solar system are broadly similar, but I think the author could have done more to flesh it out and add "local flavor.

[wisepeel]

"In the words of a famous Markiplier, if there was a program for volunteers to go into space with like a hundred percent chance of dying from death in space, I would be first in line. I love looking out at the universe and just seeing the immense grandeur of how the cosmos has unfolded and that each of those places, as foreign as they might be, have their own histories like Earth does. It's written as a travel guide. So, instead of just giving facts about the locations, he writes in a way as if he's explaining the tourism possibilities to a potential traveler about 200 or so years in the future. Mercury, for example, is generally famous for orbiting around the sun very fast in about, I believe, 88 days. And so he kind of takes the license with it that it contributed to a culture of racing fanatics that go through the canyons and cliffs doing high speed starship racing."

I talk to humans reading around us. Check out some of my links if these posts peek your interest!
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[Tarash_bulba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let the amazing artwork stimulate your imagination and visit the many wonders of the solar system and beyond! And then dream :)


P.S.: Did I say the artwork is amazing?

[Ronda Canary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super unique. I now want to see some of these places😆