Two books

Dear Space Advocates,
I have recently found two books very helpful in preparing for a public
presentation on Future Space Developments (for presentation at the local
Unitarian church), that I highly recommend. They are From the Atacama to
Makalu, by Rudy Arrieta, Coqui Press, 1997, and The Moon: Resources, Future
Development and Colonization, D. Schrunk, B. Sharpe, B. Cooper and M.
Thangavelu, Wiley, 1999. The former is about plants which are adapted to
extreme environments on Earth, and therefore provides a good guide for
planet to use on other planets. There is a useful section on Mars. The
latter book is about the industrial plans for the Moon, which are basically
consistent with O'Neill's ideas, but may seem to many of you like they are
planning so much on the Moon that there will be nothing left for the high
frontier or Mars. But, I think this book explains fairly well why a well
developed lunar industry would facilitate both of those agendas, and many
other scientific and industrial activities in space at the same time. Also
many of the ideas can be applied directly to Mars.
In my opinion, with 6 going 10 billion people on Earth, two more small
planets, Mars and the Moon, will only get us started in colonizing the Solar
System, and O'Neill type habitats will have to ultimately be built, and it
seems possible that we would get more of them built faster by developing the
Moon first.
By the way, the Moon used to be known as a planet, as did the Sun. Hence
the days of the week are; Sunday, Mo(o)nday, Tues (for Tiew or Mars) day,
Wednes (for Woden's for Mercury) day, Thurs (for Jupiter's) day, Fri (for
Frigga's or Venus) day, and Satur (n's) day. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were
not seen by the ancients (before telescopes).
A proposal; let us again call the Moon a planet, and colonize the nearest
planet to Earth first!
Sincerely, Jay S. Huebner at jhuebn@...