With known exoplanets now numbering in the thousands and initiatives like 100 Year Starship and Breakthrough Starshot advancing the idea of interstellar travel, the age-old dream of venturing forth into the cosmos and perhaps even colonizing distant worlds may one day become a reality. A Traveler鈥檚 Guide to the Stars reveals how.
Les Johnson takes you on a thrilling tour of the physics and technologies that may enable us to reach the stars. He discusses the latest exoplanet discoveries, promising interstellar missions on the not-so-distant horizon, and exciting new developments in space propulsion, power, robotics, communications, and more. But interstellar travel will not be easy, and it is not for the faint of heart. Johnson describes the harsh and forbidding expanse of space that awaits us, and he addresses the daunting challenges鈥攂oth human and technological鈥攖hat we will need to overcome in order to realize tomorrow鈥檚 possibilities.
A Traveler鈥檚 Guide to the Stars is your passport to the next great frontier of human discovery, providing a rare inside look at the remarkable breakthroughs in science and technology that will help tomorrow鈥檚 space travelers chart a course for the stars.
Awards and Recognition
- Winner of the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Writing, Long-Form Nonfiction Category
"A satisfying read."鈥擲ean Blair, BBC Sky at Night
"You’d be hard pressed to find a better choice than a book covering what it would take to get man to another star system, written by one of the world’s leading scientists actively working to turn science fiction into science fact."鈥擲ean CW Korsgaard, Analog
"In Johnson’s vision, the possibilities are great."鈥擱amin Skibba, Wired
"What will it take to explore a distant star within 100 years? To illuminate the momentousness (and ethics) of sending humans light-years from home, NASA scientist Les Johnson helps us digest mind-boggling numbers—the distance between stars, the energy required to travel that far—while laying out the opportunities and limits of existing technologies. Whether we get there by solar sails or ion thrusters or nuclear bombs, the advances we make in pursuit of interstellar travel will likely also change the way we live on Earth."鈥擣ionna M. D. Samuels, Scientific American
"The stars ... are notoriously far away, as the physicist and NASA technologist Les Johnson vividly emphasizes ...The nearest, Proxima Centauri, would take many millennia to reach. Some science-fiction writers, Mr. Johnson explains, have therefore imagined multigenerational “worldships”.... But what will power their vessels? The author entertainingly describes sci-fi options such as warp drives and hyperspace, as well as potentially feasible ones such as antimatter drives, and definitely possible methods such as ion drives, solar sails and nuclear-pulse propulsion, the last involving dropping a continuous series of nukes out the back of your spacecraft and riding the blast waves."鈥�Wall Street Journal
"A sober and careful analysis of the possibility of interstellar travel, written by someone with exactly the right background."鈥擱obert Connon Smith, The Observatory
鈥淲e effortlessly travel round and round our sun, and we wonder: How hard would it be, really, to travel to another star? Les Johnson shows us the rocket science we鈥檇 need; that鈥檚 easy enough. But then he describes with wonderful detail the Starshot nanocrafts, chipsats, Starwisps, worldships, and metamaterial LightSails that we might use. It鈥檚 a flight of imagination backed up with real out-of-this-world science.鈥�鈥擝ill Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society
鈥淟es Johnson has written a fascinating book. He takes us on a fantasy interstellar voyage鈥攁nd teaches us a lot of physics and engineering along the way.鈥�鈥擬artin Rees, author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity
鈥淟es Johnson takes us on a delightful, fascinating, and mind-bending journey to the stars. You will never see the night sky in the same way again. From ion rockets and solar sails to fusion engines and even warp drive, Johnson pushes the boundaries of where physics ends and our imagination begins. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the ultimate destiny of humanity, to be among the stars.鈥�鈥擬ichio Kaku, author of the bestseller The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything
鈥淟es Johnson is that rare breed of writer who can make rocket science comprehensible even to the layperson. He has more than paid his dues in the field, and his enthusiasm for the cause of interstellar exploration shines through. But so does his sense of humor, his humanity, and his zest for life. This is highly recommended stuff.鈥�鈥擠avid Weber, bestselling author of the Honorverse series
鈥淪pace tourism is taking off, but Earth orbit is no more than a half day鈥檚 drive straight up. A Traveler鈥檚 Guide to the Stars explores the technologies that could take us billions of times farther, breaking the bonds that tie us to the solar system. Rooted in physics, this book lays out the options for interstellar travel in rigorous yet accessible ways.鈥�鈥擟hris Impey, author of Einstein鈥檚 Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes
鈥淚s humanity ready to take on the immensities outside our solar system? This traveler鈥檚 guide lays out methods and means that may enable our first steps into the great unknown beyond the sun鈥檚 familiar campfire.鈥�鈥擠avid Brin, Hugo Award鈥搘inning author of Earth and the Uplift Saga
鈥淟es Johnson makes the complicated subject of interstellar spaceflight comprehensible to nonexperts. He carefully walks readers through the myriad physical, technical, biological, social, and even ethical challenges we must overcome to visit neighboring stars, and offers keen insights into how these problems will eventually be resolved.鈥�鈥擫. Dale Thomas, director of the Alabama Space Grant Consortium
鈥淛ohnson does a great job of describing the journey traveled by the community of researchers who are striving to make interstellar flight a reality. A Traveler鈥檚 Guide to the Stars is an excellent introduction to the subject for anyone interested in knowing more about the frontiers of human space exploration that lie in our near future.鈥�鈥擪elvin F. Long, astrophysicist, aerospace engineer, and author
鈥淎n accessible and authoritative introduction to interstellar flight. Anybody whose interest has been piqued by new astronomical discoveries or who likes science fiction will enjoy this comprehensive and easy-to-understand guide to the real science and engineering behind flying between the stars.鈥�鈥擬ark Hempsell, past president of the British Interplanetary Society
