Great Mambo Chicken

Old as the book is, the subjects and the treatments given to them are still
relevant.

The title subject, hypergravity chickens is important, because it exposes a lot
of the falseness of the supposed "problems" facing us in space flight and
space living. We don't need decades of R&D and unknown breakthroughs in
combatting microgravity adaptation, because simple structures and
mechanics let us avoid every problem facing us.
The space colony studies of O'Neill took this to the limit, and showed
definitively that we are not limited to "only One Earth" or even the tiny hostile
surfaces of slightly similar planets. All of space, from near the Sun to past
Pluto is habitable and in fact rich living.
It was wierd, that space colonies were considered farther out than
nanotechnology and reviving the not-quite-dead-yet cryonics patients. Maybe
it's more close to more people to think of living through terminal cancer, than
to think of the species living past the death of our Sun...

One other thing I liked was the extensive coverage of Truax and his work. I
never really understood what happened to Evel Kneivel at Snake River gorge
until I read the book. (I'd still like to see someone do that trick... hint: add
wings!)
I'll send something I found about Truax's big Sea Dragon rocket later. An
important part of it -and important to any consideration of getting to LEO- was
found in the "Great Mambo Chicken" book.