Question What are you reading?

[Ark]

Just finished Footfall by Niven and Pournelle. Pure deep-fried win. A must-read for hard SF and Project Orion fans. The only book where you'll see the space shuttle Atlantis with a cargo bay full of missiles making a suicide run on an alien mothership. :thumbup:

 

[Tex]

"The Mechanics Tale" by Steve Matchett.

He now does technical feedback during Formula 1 races for U.S. viewers on Speed channel.

 

[fireballs619]

Re-reading The Martian Chronicles (just my favorite parts though.) I plan on reading all the stories in R is for Rocket later on, too. Unfortunately, I am going to have to read Great Expectations for school

 

[marooder86]

Have any plans? :hmm:

I do. As for Orbiter's API's, I need this knowlege due to making the vessel I'm currently trying to develop, behave as I want it to. And as for all this particle stuff, well it's for my engineer's degree thesis which I should have finished like six months ago:lol:.
So it's not what you probably were thinking of. I'm not trying to make any sort of a particle engine. At least not yet:lol:.

 

[Gumok]

RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson. :thumbup:

 

[Unstung]

The last 3 parts of the Rama series from Clarke...in German. Read the first part (in English) during holidays in Scotland but wasn't able to get hold of the other parts. Currently at about 3/5 of the second part.

I only read the first two; the second really goes downhill in my opinion so I did not continue the series. The first Rama is great on the other hand. If you haven't red Childhood's End by Clarke, it's also one of his best.

 

[OrbiterSpore]

well, depends. ficbooks count?
i am so bored, that i where reduced to read a fic in Sporemodding brazil Forum
i can't remember EXACTLY the name... something 'bout dragons...
still unfinished and on 7th episode

 

[Ark]

RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson. :thumbup:

The same, actually.

 

[River Crab]

RED MARS by Kim Stanley Robinson. :thumbup:

Me too! :lol:
Thanks to Izack.

 

[Tycho]

I'm currently re-reading Gene Cernan's book The Last Man on the Moon. It's a great book if you're looking for a good Apollo program-related read.

 

[Carmen A]

I'm going through sci fi novels written by H Beam Piper, which are space adventures with a strangely "real world" inspiration - imagine the UGCO Arrow freighter armed with 115mm guns like an AC130 and you have a typical military starship of his universe.

I've finished "The Cosmic Computer" and now in the middle of "Space Viking".

Notice how the interstellar ships in the cover of the latter title resemble some Battletech dropships. The sphere is regarded as being the most efficient starship design.

If I'm in my Victorian roleplaying mood I also read the Lady of the Camilias.

 

[marooder86]

I'm going through sci fi novels written by H Beam Piper, which are space adventures with a strangely "real world" inspiration...

When you look at some others(most I think) sci-fi novels, movies, tv series, games etc. then those "real world" inspirations doesn't seem so strange at all. Well, there is a reason for this, writer, director, game developer can get to a larger audience by such method.

...armed with 115mm guns like an AC130...

Just as a small clarification . Ther is no such weapon onboard AC-130. However there is 105mm M102 howitzer but I hardly call it "a gun" :thumbup:.

 

[kid gagarin]

I'm reading "The Time Machine" by H.G Wells on a Nook I got for christmas.
soon I'm going to read the Iliad by homer, and the Invisible Man also by H.G Wells.

 

[Keatah]

Apollo Guidance Computer: 2010 Edition
Between that book, my TRS-80 Pocket Computer, Ti-59, And Orbiter, I can pretend I'm plotting out a real lunar mission!!

 

[Carmen A]

Just as a small clarification . Ther is no such weapon onboard AC-130. However there is 105mm M102 howitzer but I hardly call it "a gun" .

10 milimetres is nothing to nitpick about. I do know what I'm talking about when a few books in a row depict field-modified space freighters sporting heavy weaponry. And I'm intimately familiar with certain, real world weapon systems of the previous Century.

 

[marooder86]

Please don't get me wrong,mocking you or your knowlege about weaponry wasn't my intention. After the second quote my post was rather humorous based on a fact that firearms are generally devided into guns(there's a special term for it but I admit, I'm not familliar with proper nomenclature..., wait, wait my technological dictionary says it's "small arms") which are up to 20mm and artillery which is everything above that. This is why I thought your words:

armed with 115mm guns

are kind of funny because it's like saying USS Abraham Lincoln is a boat:lol:.
Oh, and you were talking about AC-130 Gunship("Spooky"), right?

 

[thesnorklemonkey]

Right now I'm in the middle of Moonfire, by Norman Mailer.

It's really interesting, especially the special edition with the high quality glossy photos.

 

[Cairan]

I've finished Without Warning from John Birmingham recently... when I get a few hours off I'll start One Second After...

 

[vchamp]

Not a space exploration related at all - The Dark Tower, book 6 of 7.

 

[bujin]

This week, I'm reading:

Silverlight 4 Unleashed
Silverlight 4 Business Intelligence Software
and
Pro WPF and Silverlight MVVM

We will be getting Visual Studio in work within the next few weeks to develop Silverlight applications - the problem is that no-one here has done any serious programming other than to write a few MS Access database applications! So I'm cramming as much learning of C# and Silverlight in as possible. I have been learning it on and off over the past year and it's starting to make sense, but now I need to learn it properly!

Not space-related either. But you never know, I might be able to write a Silverlight-based flight computer that will control the next generation of spacecraft...