San Antonio College Library

"Mars is ingrained in our culture, from David Bowie's extra-terrestrial spiders to H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. The red planet has inspired hundreds of scientists, authors and filmmakers--but why? What is it about this particular planet that makes it so intriguing? Ancient mythologies defined Mars as a violent harbinger of war, and astrologers found meaning in the planet's dance through the sky. Stargazers puzzled over Mars's unfamiliar properties;...

"The Aliens Are Coming! is a refreshingly clear, hugely entertaining guide to the search for alien life. Miller looks everywhere for insight, from the Big Bang's sea of energy that somehow became living matter, to the equations that tell us Earth is not so rare, to the clues bacteria hold to how life started. And he makes the case that our growing understanding of life itself will help us predict whether it exists elsewhere, what it might look like,...

"The twentieth century gave us two great theories of physics. The general theory of relativity describes the behavior of very large things, and quantum theory the behavior of very small things. In this landmark book, John Gribbin--one of the best-known science writers of the past thirty years--presents his own version of the Holy Grail of physics, the search that has been going on for decades to find a unified "Theory of Everything" that combines...

"Imagine a network of extraterrestrials in radio contact with each other across the universe, superior beings who hail from advanced civilizations quadrillions of miles away, just waiting for Earth to tune in. Some people believe it's only a matter of time before we discover the right "station." Waiting for Contact tells the story of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) movement, which emerged in 1959 as astronomers began using radio...

A stunning memoir from the astronaut who spent a record-breaking year aboard the International Space Stateion - a candid account of his remarkable voyage, the journeys that preceded it, and his colorful formative years. The veteran of four spaceflights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things veyr few have. Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly hostile to human life. He describes navigating...

Less than 20 years after its founding, SpaceX boasts the largest constellation of commercial satellites in orbit, has pioneered reusable rockets, and in 2020 became the first private company to launch human beings into orbit. Berger takes readers inside the wild early days that made SpaceX. Focusing on the company's first four launches of the Falcon 1 rocket, he charts the bumpy journey from scrappy underdog to aerospace pioneer. He draws upon interviews...