Space Enterprise: Living and Working Offworld in the 21st Century

by Philip Robert Harris

For over a half century, human activities in outer space have increased, but the high point was the Apollo Moon landings from 1969 1972. Now the United States has set forth a national space policy to return permanently to the lunar surface by 2020, and NASA is engaged in strategic planning to accomplish that goal. Furthermore, Europe, Russia, Japan, China, and India are undertaking missions to the Moon and its vicinity. All this will lead to using our sister planet as a space station and launch pad to Mars and other celestial bodies.

In SPACE ENTERPRISE - LIVING AND WORKING OFFWORLD, Dr Philip Harris provides the vision and rationale as to why humanity is leaving its cradle, Earth, to use space resources, as well as pursuing lunar industrialization and establishing offworld settlements. As a management/space psychologist, Dr. Harris presents a behavioral science perspective on space exploration and enterprise. In this his 45th book, Phil has completely revised and updated the two previous editions of this classic, placing new emphasis on the need for more synergy and participation by the private sector. He not only provides a critical review of what is happening in the global space community, but offers specific strategies for lunar economic development. The author analyzes the human factors in contemporary and future space developments, especially relative to the deployment of people aloft. This user-friendly volume offers numerous photographs, diagrams, exhibits, and case studies. Easily readable, as well as useful as a reference work, the book s content covers a wide range of practical considerations related to human activities offworld. To live and work successfully in a microgravity environment, the author examines human performance and organizational management, as well as physical, psychological, political, commercial, legal, and other dimensions.

Genres: Space

672 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Devon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Excellent resource, well researched, very detailed. Unfortunately, it reads like a 616 page project management flow chart. I only made it about 100 pages in before I started only reading the section titles and summaries.

Pick this up if you're interested in the non-technical aspects of management/politics/government/case studies for space projects between 1950 and 2000, as well as possible future projects in the 2000 - 2050 time frame.

If you're looking for SF ideas, or far future stuff, technical details, or pleasure reading, that's NOT what this tome is about. It's more like a huge HR training manual.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following the space race, many people thought about human colonies in space. This book evaluates and explores several factors of living away from Eath.