The Precipice (Ben Bova) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

The Precipice by Ben Bova

The modern tropics and their fringes support more than half the world’s population, numbered in the billions. Many already live at the fringe of survival, dependent on food aid transported from the grain belts of more temperate zones. Even a small climatic shift… would physically compress the geographical limits for cereal cropping… I leave it to your imagination what such a pace of climate change would entail for most people.

Stephen Drury

Stepping Stones: Evolving the Earth and Its Life

…some men have already embarked on a bold new adventure, the conquest of outer space. This is a healthy sign, a clear indication that some of us are still feral men, unwilling to domesticate ourselves by any kind of bondage, even that of the spatial limitations of our planet’s surface.

Carleton S. Coon The Story of Man (Third Edition)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Irving Levitt, a rare jewel among men.

To Barbara, who adorns my life with beauty.

And with special thanks to Jeff Mitchell, a real rocket scientist; to Chris Fountain, metallurgist and optimist; and to Lee Modesitt, an economist with imagination; true friends all.