Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond.... - Softcover

From the first landings on the moon to the implications of our cyber worlds, this unusual and intriguing book takes a provocative look at our fascination with space. Rocket Dreams is a fast-moving, fact-filled study of how all the dreams that went in to moonflight in the '60s have found new homes and mutated into new fascination with space. It is about our unquenchable desire to reach out to other worlds, physical and imaginative. From the Apollo astronauts to the military origins of the internet, and the whole phenomenon of 'virtual communities', it reveals how the ideals and longings pinned on cyberspace have evolved directly from those of the space age. Space dreams have been transformed into screen dreams, but the longing for communication with 'the other' lies at the heart of both.

Marina Benjamin is in her early 30s. She studied History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge. Before moving into journalism, at one point she worked as a professional gambler in Europe and Las Vegas. She then became Arts Editor of the New Statesman and Evening Standard. She has written for the Independent, Guardian and other papers, and for dot.com publications, and her previous book was Living at the end of the world (Picador, 1998). She now divides her time between in San Francisco and London.