HUMANITY'S GREATEST LEAP

A science book argues that interstellar space travel is theoretically and technologically feasible, and advocates for the importance of major, government-funded endeavors.

According to Pickrell, what might seem like the fantastical stuff of SF—travel to distant planets and stars—is actually a scientifically legitimate aspiration. The key is “matter/anti-matter annihilation,” the process behind the internal body images generated by a PET scan. The author provides a brief explanation—the entire work is under 100 pages—of the science, which should be accessible to a “general audience,” an impressive feat given the forbiddingly technical nature of the subject. In short, the collision of matter and anti-matter produces pairs of electrons and positrons, which in turn generate gamma rays, a “very high energy form of light” that can propel matter. For decades, scientists were unsure how to produce a sufficient number of those pairs, and if they did, how to store them, but new technological advances have solved both of these challenges. Incorporated into a propulsion system that Pickrell describes in some detail, the consequences would be “profound”—“travel to nearby stars is, within a single human lifetime, now conceivable and practicable.” The author also contends, at least in theory, this should allow travel at the speed of light, or even greater. Pickrell’s exposition of his hypothesis is as meticulous as it is lucid, and he admits quite freely that there “is significant scientific and engineering work that must be done to make high-speed space travel possible.” But especially surprising given the brevity of his calculations, he furnishes a convincing case that such a technological advance is theoretically possible. In addition, he provides a moving argument in favor of grand, government-funded scientific projects of the kind that capture the exploratory spirit that distinguishes humankind: “Science itself, therefore, is merely one expression of our innate human drive to wander and to wonder, to explore, and to understand.”

A captivating work about a wondrous scientific possibility.