[removed]

Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles probably won't be what you expect, but it's a beautiful book

I recommend The Saving of Verano. It’s light but very interesting.

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

Stephen Baxter has some seriously deep, science based, hard Sci-Fi.. a lot of it leaves you feeling.... ehhhhh... lol.. But very good, very engrossing. He also did a really great collab with Terry Prattchet before he died called The Long Earth series. Someone mentioned the Bobiverse books, which are good light Sci-Fi. You want some some good hard sci-fi look up Alistair Reynolds, Peter F. Hamilton, or Neal Asher.

As mentioned folks have done the delta V analysis of the published GEO and TMI numbers and come to the 20,000kg value, but let’s say your 16,000kg number is correct. SLS Block 1 is 27,000kg TLI, so not even twice that of Falcon Heavy.

If you like Andy Weir, check out Delta-V by Daniel Suarez.

Daniel Suarez has other non-space but tech based thrillers that are good as well.

[removed]

[removed]

Lots of comments mentioning Shuttle disasters, but American society is different now...I would hope NASA would continue, but definitely not as certain as even a few years ago. China would absolutely continue

[removed]

IMO, most Arthur C. Clarke books fit the bill. A few novels off the top of my head, in my order of preference:

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Rendezvous with Rama
• Childhood's End
• The Songs of Distant Earth
• The City and the Stars
• The Fountains of Paradise
• The Hammer of God
• Imperial Earth

2001 and Rama have sequels, but I'd recommend against reading them until after reading the above. IMO, the Rama sequels are inferior, not so much Clarke and more his collaborator.

Hey I just started on a light one too, come join me with Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

I'm only on page 43 and the reading is easily digestible

I’m actually super proud SLS was able to do it. I have a buddy who talked nothing but shit about SLS and how much better Starship is and honestly man, I wholeheartedly disagree. Sure, Starship may one day succeed SLS but man, that expensive rocket sure is cool to see fly!!

[removed]

Robert A. Heinlein’s early work. The science is dead on.

if it's really "ready for crewed Artemis II launch" why is it scheduled for May 2024? disingenuous title.

The Martian and Project Hail Mary, both by Andy Weir.

In preparation for the upcoming Netflix adaption: "The Three-Body Problem" by Liu Cixin (first part of a trilogy). Mindblowing chinese sci-fi, touching many philosophical and physical questions and topics like environmentalism and computer architecture. Expect a GoT-like hype for the Netflix series (same producers), but I found the chinese series to be exceptionally good as well (running now on Rakuten Viki). You know the drill: read the book first. It's always better to read the book first.

Try The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. A bit dated but a worthy Sci fi read

Hot young stars get eaten by a black celestial body

You might like The Expanse series by James S A Corey. It takes place about 400 years into the future and we have colonized most of Sol, with Mars independent from Earth and a working class in the belt. It's also a show on Amazon Prime.

Yeah it’s all public knowledge. Just google something like 2023 dod requests for proposal round 1 or something like that you’ll find it. The first round of funding is going on now and proposals are due in March.