The Dream Of Spaceflight: Essays On The Near Edge Of Infinity

The Dream Of Spaceflight: Essays On The Near Edge Of Infinity
ISBN-10
0306810484
ISBN-13
9780306810480
Category
Science
Pages
266
Language
English
Published
2001-05-17
Publisher
Da Capo Press
Author
Wyn Wachhorst

Description

One of few truly gifted essayists who have turned their talents to science, Wyn Wachhorst here fashions a luminous meditation on the meaning of space exploration from a montage of images and reflections on humanity's dream of spaceflight. In a survey of major figures from Johannes Kepler to Wernher von Braun, he sees in the rise of spaceflight a metaphor of modern history as a recurrent story of transformation and rebirth. Other essays offer new perspectives on the nature of wonder, recall the romantic vision of the decades prior to Sputnik ("nostalgia for a bygone future"), and look at the larger meaning of the moon landing, seeing in spaceflight not only a spiritual quest in the broadest sense of the word, but a cure for the withered capacity for wonder that afflicts the postmodern mind.

Similar books