Gregory L. Matloff

The Earth is undergoing rapid climate change, humans are utilizing Earth's resources at an unprecedented rate. If the human population continues this way, we will see ourselves in even more trouble very soon. Matloff, Bangs and Johnson present a different type of solution to some of our climate-change and resource use issues upon the Earth; Harvesting Space for a Greener Earth gives plausible ideas for resource use from space and technology placed in space to assist those on Earth.
The bulk of the book acts as a primer on understanding basic scientific principles, our solar system, the evolution of life on Earth, human's use of the Earth, and climate change principles; all of this however goes to support their thesis that we need to stop polluting and using resources from the Earth and instead carry out processes, harvest resources and use technology in space. Since I studied most of this in school, it was a review for me, but it is written in a way that those not well-versed in science can easily understand. The ideas for harvesting resources from space and using space-based technology to help us on Earth were very interesting to me. In the book the authors describe two camps, and I easily fall into the environmentalist side, where I use less resources, reduce pollution and recycle everything. The author's side of the coin, space advocates, can work with my side, but their ideas were very out of the box for me. One of the proposed ideas was to place heavy industry and pollution-creating processes in a place that is inhospitable to life, like the moon. This idea is hard for me to come to terms with, not because of it's plausibility, but because of it's impact. One of the ideas I liked more was harvesting resources from Near Earth Objects, asteroids and comets that may contain up to a year's worth of iron in one object. These NEO's have also been shown to contain nickel, platinum, copper and gold. Some of these objects might come close to hitting the Earth and would have to be moved off that trajectory, the author's motto of "If we gotta move them, why not use them?" seems very wise. I was also highly intrigued by using solar shade and Dyson dots in space as a way of mitigating the climate change that is already happening. Of course, the catch and cost of these technologies was discussed. Overall, Harvesting Space offers new ideas that need to be readily explored and put into place in order to avoid the environmental downfall that humans are heading towards.… (meer)

Although interested in the subject matter I began to read this book with great trepidation due to what I shall refer to as 'Cosmos Syndrome'. You see, when I was but a tween my aunt gave me a copy of the book 'Cosmos' by Carl Sagan. I loved that book, particular the pictures the likes of which I had never seen before, but most of the detailed commentary just flew right over my head. So when I read the inside cover of this book and seen it was written by a Doctor of Physics, a NASA Project Manager and a NASA Faculty Fellow I could do nothing other than think I was in for some very tough reading. As it happens I need not have worried as the book is written in a clear, concise and easy to understand manner.
Cover to cover 'Paradise Regained' is only 180 pages long yet due to the concise nature of the writing it is crammed with information and ideas. This is something I found refreshing as too many books nowadays, whether fiction or non-fiction, flesh out their work for no apparent reason other than to up the page numbers and make it appear as if one is getting more bang for their buck. In fact they're getting unnecessary wordage that just slows or dulls down the overall content.
The book is split into three parts each dealing with a different aspect. The first part deals with the formation and resources of earth and the solar system and is very much background information for the next two parts. The second part of the book deals with the here and now and the ecological challenges facing our planet. The third, and final, part of the book puts forward potential solutions to our problems through the development of space and its resources.
Overall, I very much enjoyed reading 'Paradise Regained' and found it to be very educational. The solutions put forward to our ecological problems were well thought out. Although, given that we live in a world where governments are far more willing to spend money on war and destruction than they are on saving the planet I found myself doubting whether the actual cost of instigating some of these potential solutions would ever be forthcoming by governments. However, the authors are dealing with solutions to problems and not the costs of those solutions and in that respect they have put forward some compelling and thought provoking scenarios.… (meer)